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 SIR THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, BART.
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 Sffi THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, 
 
 BART. 
 
 EDITED BY HIS SOK, 
 
 CHAELES BUXTON, M.A, M.P. 
 
 INQUIRY INTO THE RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION. 
 
 " The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great differ- 
 ence between men, between the feeble and the powerful, the great 
 and the insignificant, is energy — invincible determination — a purpose 
 ouce fixed, and then death or yictory. That quality will do any- 
 thing that can be done in this world ; and no talents, no circum- 
 stances, no opportunities, will make a two-legged creature a man 
 without it." — Extract of a Letter frrnn Sir T. Fowell Buxton. 
 
 Ificto <J2bitioii. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1872.
 
 )g tijt same ^utl^or. 
 
 THE IDEAS OP THE DAY ON POLICY. 
 
 ANALYSED AND ARRANGED. 
 Third Edition, 8vo, 6s. 
 
 NOTES OP THOUGHT AND CONVEESATION. 
 
 Post 8vo. 
 
 pRiNTrn nv PAi.i.ANTVNn anii company 
 
 ri>INIU'RC;H AND lONDON
 
 V 
 
 AN INQUIRl 'J i> r< ^'^" 
 
 INTO THE 
 
 (2 7^' 
 
 EESIJLTS OF EMANCIPATION,* 
 
 By CHARLES BUXTON. 
 
 A HUNDEED years ago, when black men were seldom seen 
 north of the Tweed, an old Scotch gentlewoman meeting a 
 negro in the street, cast up her eyes and hands, exclaiming, 
 " Hech, sirs, what canna be made for the penny 1 " And well 
 might the British people do the same. At a cost, not of one 
 penny, but of five thousand million pennies, we have pro- 
 duced that curious specimen of the human race, the free negro 
 of the West Indies. Such was the outlay. Now, what is 
 the result 1 What sort of thing have we got for our money ? 
 Was that a wise investment of capital ] 
 
 The reply of some high authorities has been given, and is 
 this — Our islands, they say, the richest and loveliest in the 
 world, are fallen from wealth to ruin — crumbling, deserted, 
 desolate towns — empty harbours — trade gone — agriculture 
 at death's door — the old staples vanished away — the own- 
 ers of these once fertile lands languishing in poverty, or dead 
 of broken hearts — the negroes, for whom all was done, "sunk 
 up to the ears in pumpkin," growing every day more savage, 
 more idle, more beastly. Such, they tell us, is the work that 
 our philanthropy has Avorked out under the sun. Now, is 
 that so, or is it not so ? The subject deserves some thought. 
 England's giving freedom to her slaves was an act unique in 
 the history of man. We know not where an example can be 
 found of so noble a sacrifice made by a whole people. As 
 to its prudence, some may think one thing, and some an- 
 
 * This Essay appeai'ed in the April number of the Edinburgh Revieio, 185!>. 
 It has been thought worth while to prefix it to these Memoirs, in order to 
 shew, from irrefragable statistics and official reports, that the work to which 
 my father's life was given has not proved, as miuiy suppose, a failure.
 
 IV INQUIRY INTO 
 
 otiier ; but no man can lay it at the door of any selfish feel- 
 ing. The people of the United Kingdom believed slavery 
 to be cruel. It seemed to them a breach of the law of love 
 which the gospel had laid down. For these reasons, and for 
 these alone, they made up their minds to be rid of it. But 
 they were not hurried away by their zeal ; they chose to 
 pay the cost themselves ; and ^20,000,000 was paid down by 
 them to get the slaves set free. To us, who saw this done, 
 it may seem an every-day affair. But seen from afar, in the 
 coming ages, it may strike men as sublime. 
 
 Was it, after all, an act of shining folly 1 Has it really 
 A\Tought woe and not weal in the world ] It is worth while 
 to find out the true reply to these questions. For if all this 
 were so, then that noble old maxim, that "Right never comes 
 wi-ong," would be overthrown. Here we have a nation plain- 
 ly setting itself to do right, " because right was right ; " be- 
 cause it thought more of what was due to God and man, 
 than of itseK. Has this been a failure 1 has this done harm 
 and not good 1 then it may be unwise to do right. Wrong, 
 perhaps, might as well be kept going. The laws of God ami 
 the rights of man may be well enough in their way, but 
 should we obey the one, or observe the other, we may find 
 ourselves made fools of. 
 
 We are far indeed from denying that the owners of West 
 Indian property have gone through a time of deep distress. 
 The cry of despair that rose from them in 1847, and the next 
 years, was appalling. Many and many a family once blessed 
 witli opulence sank into poverty, while hundreds of others 
 liad their fortunes shattered, if not destroyed. No wonder 
 such an overthrow should have been loudly noised, not only 
 through England, but through the world, and that emanci- 
 pation slioukl be looked upon as having given the death-blow 
 to our once thriving colonies. People were not likely to boar 
 in mind that, liowever sad tliese events might be, still the 
 great outcry arose fourteen years after slavery (ten years after 
 the apprenticcsliip) liad been done away, and at once upon a 
 change of a wholly ditfercnt kind. Nor could they have been 
 expected to reiiiember that the cries of distress came, not 
 from the whole iiojiulation of those islands, but mainly from 
 the ))ro])rietors living in England, whose voice tlicrcfore rang 
 the louder, l»iit niiglit not be the voice of the mass of the 
 jieoijlc. It was natin-al for the world to think that the whole 
 of our sugar ci;lonies were sinking into ruin, though the out-
 
 THE RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION. V 
 
 cry came from some of them, but not from others. It was 
 natural for the world to think that when it no longer heard 
 "that 'most outrageous dreadful yelling cry" (to quote the 
 Fairy Queen,) it was hushed in death, though in truth it 
 ceased because the pinch was over. No wonder the world 
 fancies that our sugar colonies are as good as swept off the 
 face of the earth, though in fact they are swiftly becoming a 
 gem in the British crown, of higher value than they ever 
 were before. 
 
 A long and thorough investigation of the case has borne us 
 irresistibly to the conclusion, that in these assumptions the 
 world has been wrong ; and if the reader will go with us 
 through the following pages, we think he will agree with us 
 in believing that, even if we set aside all thoughts but 
 thoughts of pounds, shillings, and pence — as a dry question 
 of economy — emancipation has joa/c?; that it was an act of 
 prudence for which we, as a nation of shopkeepers, need not 
 blush before that golden god whom we are thought to wor- 
 ship so eagerly. We shall bring forward what seem to us 
 conclusive reasons for the persuasion that, had England not 
 cared a jot for those noble principles that really nerved her 
 to the work, had she only kept a shrewd look-out for the main 
 chance, it was not weak but wise of her to free her slaves. 
 
 This, then,- is the plain question to which we have sought 
 out the reply. Taking no thought, for the nonce, of huma- 
 nity, morality, Christianity — looking to the pocket alone — 
 has emancipation answered, or been a blunder 1 Good and 
 kindly meant as it undoubtedly was, is the world the worse 
 off for it, or the better off for it ? Did the philanthropists 
 ruin the West Indies 1 or did they save the West Indies from 
 imminent, irretrievable ruin, and set them on the road to a 
 prosperity at once sound and splendid ? Let that be the test 
 of the great experiment of 1834. Has it plunged the former 
 slave colonies into hopeless ruin ] then never mind its noble- 
 ness, let it stand condemned. But if the distress which fell 
 on the West Indies in 1847 can be clearly traced to other 
 causes ; if it was only a passing storm ; if, those other causes 
 being spent, freedom is now working out a well-being that 
 was unknown in the days of slavery — then, we say, let eman- 
 cipation stand approved in the sight of all the world. 
 
 And this it is which the facts before us seem to prove. 
 They shew that slavery was bearing our colonies down to 
 ruiii with awful speed ; that had it lasted but another half
 
 VI INQUIRY INTO 
 
 century, they must have sunk beyond recovery. On the other 
 hand, that now, under freedom and free trade, they are grow- 
 ing day by day more rich and prosperous ; with spreading 
 trade, with improving agriculture, with a more educated, in- 
 dustrious, and virtuous people ; while the comfort of the 
 quondam slaves is increased beyond the power of words to 
 portray. 
 
 Never was a more radical revolution made in the fortunes 
 of a whole people, than when the 800,000 British negroes 
 stepped from slavery into freedom. When the clock began 
 to strike twelve on the night of July 31, 1S34, they were, in 
 the eye of the law, things, chattels, beasts of burden, the mere 
 property of others. When it had ceased to sound, they were 
 for the first time, not only free men but men; standing on 
 the same level as those who had formerly owned them. The 
 whole form of things became so thoroughly new, that it is 
 now no easy matter to paint oneself a living picture of a state 
 of society which has been so utterly swept away ; but of its 
 more salient features hints enough remain. And we must 
 say that in glancing through the piles of information on the 
 state of the slave colonies accumulated dining the anti-sla- 
 very struggle, we have been amazed at the breadth and depth 
 of the cruelty which slavery was shewn to beget. There are 
 those who jog along in the easy and pleasant belief that the 
 plantations had been under kindly government, and that the 
 tales of barbarity that used to be rife years and years ago, 
 were for the most part mere wind. We have had but too 
 much reason to change our minds on this head. And yet, 
 though the shadows of slavery were dark, and too often ter- 
 rible, there seems to have been a good play of sunlight upon 
 it as well ; and, luckily, a charming picture of the bright side 
 of slavery has been preserved for us by " Monk" Lewis, who 
 was not only a nian of poetical feeling, but of a most kind 
 nature, and who went to see his estates mainly from a sense 
 of duty towards his slaves. He reached Jamaica on the 1st 
 of January, ( 1 81 G,) the severe work of crop time just over, and 
 the negroes at their best and merriest. The air was delicious, 
 ■^rhe fragrance of the sweet wood and other scented trees put 
 him in mind of "the buxom air, embalmed with odours" of 
 I'aradisc, while the scenery was highly picturesque, from the 
 lively green of the vegetation and the hermitage like appear- 
 ,'iiK'e of the negro buildings, all situated in little gardens, and 
 embosomed in swcct-smelling shrubberies. The joy of the
 
 THE RESULTS OP EMANCIPATION. VH 
 
 slaves at seeing raassa, if not deep, was at least noisy. They 
 sang, danced, shouted, and tumbled over each other, and 
 rolled about on the ground, while every man, woman, and 
 child chattered its loudest. The mothers held up their little 
 shining black imps, grinning from ear to ear, with " Look, 
 massa, look here ; him nice lilly neger for massa." Nor was 
 female loveliness wanting to complete the picture ; but was 
 well represented by Mary Wiggins, whose complexion had 
 no yellow in it ; teeth admirable, eyes mild and bright, and 
 a face merely broad enough to give it " all possible softness 
 and grandness of contour." Many old servants of the family 
 (which at that time lived on the estate) came to see him, 
 and shewed such warmth and enthusiasm that after the cold 
 manners of England the contrast was infinitely agreeable, 
 and his heart expanded in the sunshine of the kind looks 
 and words which met him at every turn, and seemed to wait 
 for his smiles as anxiously as if they were so many diamonds. 
 On three sides the landscape was bounded by purple moun- 
 tains, and the variety of occupations going on all around 
 gave an inconceivable air of life and animation to the whole 
 scene, especially as all those occupations looked cleanly. The 
 tradespeople were dressed in jackets and trousers, either 
 white, or of red and sky-blue stripe. Here a band of negroes 
 carrying the ripe canes on their heads to the mill ; another 
 set conveying away the trash, after the juice had been ex- 
 tracted ; flocks of turkeys sheltering from the heat under the 
 trees; the river filled with ducks and geese; the coopers and 
 carpenters hammering at the puncheons ; carts drawn, some 
 by six, some by eight oxen, bringing loads of Indian corn 
 from the fields ; the black children gathering it in to the 
 granary, or quarrelling with pigs as black as themselves, who 
 were equally busy in stealing the corn whenever the children 
 were looking another way : such was the scene which met 
 Mr Lewis's eyes as he stood in his veranda; and, "in short," 
 he adds, " a plantation possesses all the movement and in- 
 terest of a farm, without its dung, and its stench, and its 
 dirty accompaniments." 
 
 Such was the Arcadian felicity of a slave plantation under 
 the eye of a kind and opulent owner. But it would seem 
 that even such an Eden as this shared the lot of the rest of 
 the earth, of which Goethe's angel Gabriel tells us — 
 
 " Es wechselt Paradieses-Helle 
 Mic tiefer schauervoller Nacht."
 
 viii iNQcriEY into 
 
 For tliougli under the mild sway of Mr Lewis all flowed 
 so sweetly, by degrees he found things out that did not 
 please him. Nay, his own way of putting it is, that " no- 
 thing could equal" his " anger and surprise " when he dis- 
 covered what had been going on before his coming was 
 looked for. His father had always filled his letters with the 
 most positive orders for the good treatment of the slaves, 
 and had chosen a first-rate agent. Yet this man, from mere 
 sloth, had let an overseer treat them so savagely that at one 
 time " they had been driven absolutely into rebellion, and 
 almost every slave of respectability had been compelled to 
 become a runaway." . ..." If I had not come to Jamaica 
 myself," he adds, " in all probability I should never have 
 had the most distant idea hoiv abominably the poor creatures 
 had been ill used." And then his own agent said nothing 
 plainly, but shook his head, and gave poor Lewis evidently 
 to understand that the slaves could not be governed without 
 the cart-whip. In fact, the need of that stimulus soon grew 
 plain, for the production of sugar fell from thirty-three hogs- 
 heads a-week (before his coming) down to thirteen ! " The 
 negroes certainly are perverse beings," is the reflection he 
 made. But he was not long in finding that whites are " per- 
 verse beings " too, for some alarmed planters actually wanted 
 the grand jury at Montego Bay to prosecute him for over- 
 indulgence to his own slaves ! "While to his great morti- 
 fication, on visiting his other estate, which he " had ex- 
 pected to find a perfect paradise," it proved to be " a hell 
 upon earth." 
 
 And what a hell upon earth a plantation was, under a sharp 
 master, is so vividly set forth in a plain, unvarnished account 
 ■\\Titten by Mr Whitely, who was book-keeper (clerk) on the 
 New Ground Plantation, near St Ann's Bay, in Jamaica, in 
 1832, that we shall venture to extract one of the many scenes 
 that he describes : — 
 
 "12lh instance.— The first of these two cases was that of a married 
 woman, the mother of several children. She was brought up to the 
 overseer's door oue inurninp, and one of the drivers who came with her 
 accused her of having stolen a fowl. Some feathers, said to have been 
 found in her hut, were exhibited as evidence of her guilt. The over- 
 Beer asked her if she could pay for the fowl. She said something in 
 rejily wliich I did not clearly understand. The question was repeated, 
 and a similar reply again given. The overseer then said, ' 1 ut her 
 down.' On this the woman set up a shriek, and rent the ;iir with her 
 cries of terror. Her countenance grew quite ghastly, and her lijis be- 
 came pale and livid. I was close to her, and particularly noticed her
 
 THE EEStTLTS OF EMANCIPATION. ix 
 
 remarkable aspect and expression of countenance. The overseer swore 
 fearfully, and repeated his order, * Put her down ! ' The woman was 
 then extended on the ground and held down by two negroes. Her gown 
 and shift were literally torn from her back, and, thus brutally exposed, 
 she was subjected to the cart-whip. The punishment inflicted on this 
 poor creature was inhumanly severe. She was a woman somewhat 
 plump in her person, and the whip being wielded with great vigour, 
 every stroke cut deep into the flesh. She writhed and twisted her body 
 violently under the infliction, — moaning loudly, but uttering no excla- 
 mation in words, except once, when she cried out entreating that her 
 nakedness might not be indecently exposed, — appearing to suffer from 
 matronly modesty even more acutely on account of her indecent ex- 
 posure, than the cruel laceration of her body. But the overseer only 
 noticed her appeal by a brutal reply, and the flogging continued. Dis- 
 gusted as I was, I witnessed the whole to a close. I numbered the 
 lashes, stroke by stroke, and counted //<^, thus exceeding by eleven the 
 number allowed by the colonial law to be inflicted at the arbitrary will 
 of the master or manager. This was the only occasion on which 1 saw 
 the legal number of thirty-nine lashes exceeded; but I never knew the 
 overseer or head book-keeper give less than thirty-nine. This poor 
 victim was shockingly lacerated. When permitted to rise she again 
 shrieked violently. The overseer swore roughly, and threatened if she 
 was not quiet, to put her down again. He then ordered her to be taken 
 to the hot-house, or hospital, and put in the stocks. She was to be 
 continued in the stocks for several nights, while she worked in the yard 
 during the day at light work. She was too severely mangled to be able 
 to go to the field for some days." 
 
 Nor could these sickening severities have been at all un- 
 usual. For in the four " crown colonies," * the home govern- 
 ment was able to do what it pleased, and accordingly it re- 
 quired every planter to give in sworn returns of the punish- 
 ments inflicted on his estate. By these sworn returns there 
 were registered, in the two years 1828-9, 68,921 punishments. 
 The law allowed, in the crown colonies, twenty-five stripes 
 to a punishment, which limit was incessantly passed. Taking 
 the average, however, at but twenty stripes, this puts the 
 total amount of stripes inflicted, in regular floggings, for 
 these four colonies alone, in two years, at no less than one 
 milUon three hundred and fifty thousand ! Twenty-five 
 thousand and ninety-foiu" punishments, or, at that rate, half 
 a mUlion of those stripes were sworn to as having been in- 
 flicted up6n/(S??i«/e5.t 
 
 That the whip, and the dread of the whip, must have 
 caused an unspeakable amount of physical and moral misery, 
 is then plain enough. In this respect emancipation has be- 
 yond all question caused a vast accession to human happi- 
 ness, in that it has substituted the attraction of rewards for 
 
 ♦ Guiana, (at that time divided,) Trinidad, St Lucia. 
 t Protector's EeportB, Pari. Papers.
 
 X INQUIRY INTO 
 
 tlie compulsion of terror. But by far the most portentous 
 and striking of the features of West Indian society under 
 slavery was this, that while the free negroes were steadily 
 advancing in number, the slaves were dying off at a rate 
 which was described at the time as " appalling." 
 
 It was not by stories of atrocious cruelty that the eyes of 
 Parliament were opened to the wickedness and folly of sla- 
 very. If any of our readers would turn to the pages of 
 Hansard, they would find that what gave the death-blow to 
 slaverj'', in the minds of English statesmen, was the popula- 
 tion return, which shewed the fact, " the appalling " fact, 
 that although only eleven out of the eighteen islands had 
 sent them in, yet in those eleven islands the slaves had de- 
 creased in twelve years by no less than 60,219 : namely, from 
 558,194 to 497,975 !* Had similar returns been procured 
 from the other seven colonies, (including Mauritius, Antigua, 
 Barbadoes, and Grenada,) the decrease must have been little, 
 if at all, less than 100,000 ! Now it was plain to every one 
 that if this were really so, the system could not last. The 
 driest economist would allow that it would not pay to let 
 the working-classes be slaughtered. To work the labouring 
 men of our West Indies to death might bring in a good re- 
 turn for a while, but could not be a profitable enterprise in 
 the long run. Accordingly, this was the main, we had almost 
 said the only, topic of the debates on slavery in 1831 and 
 1832. Is slavery causing a general massacre of the working 
 classes in our sugar islands, or is it noti was a question worth 
 debating, in the pounds, sliillings, and pence view, as well as 
 in the moral one. And debated it was, long and fiercely. 
 The result was the full establishment of the dreadful fact. 
 I'he slaves, as Mr Marryatt said, were " dying like rotten 
 {sheep." 
 
 Whatever, then, may be said for West Indian slavery, this 
 damning thing must be said against it, that the slaves ivere 
 dtjxwj of it. Then came emancipation. The tide at once 
 turned. In the next twelve years, there was an increase of 
 54,070 in tlie number of the negroes of but ten colonies, (no 
 return liaving been sent from tlie larger ones.) This one 
 fact is enough by itself to justify emancipation. Whatever 
 evils might have sprung from that act, nothing could be so 
 bad for both master and men as to have all the latter killed 
 
 • Pnrl. Papers— Population RotMnis for Iho West Indies. Of course tho do- 
 crcuto by munumibtiiuu io not iucludud.
 
 THE RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION. XI 
 
 off. Yet sucli was tlie nmit towards wliicli things were actu- 
 ally tending, and that swiftly. Had the same rate of de- 
 crease gone on, one century would have seen the extinction 
 of slavery, by the extinction of the slaves. We put it to the 
 good sense of our readers, whether it would have answered 
 to let this state of things proceed. 
 
 We have shewn, then, how deep and how murderous was 
 the wretchedness into which the working-classes of the West 
 Indies was thrust by slavery. We have given some glimpses 
 of the oppression they endured, and how they perished under 
 it. So far, then, as the mass of the peoj^le went, it plainly 
 was not only a good but a wise thing to cut their bonds. 
 And, perhaps, now-a-days, it may seem strange that it should 
 ever have been wished to keep such a state of things going, 
 for the sake of a small body of gentlemen. But what made 
 the matter wholly unbearable was, that it had not even the 
 poor merit of enriching those for whose good the system was 
 held to. Never did the truth come out with greater clear- 
 ness than in the West Indies, that it is short-sighted folly 
 to thrust aside natural arrangements, and set up artificial 
 ones in their stead. Here was a body of men owning some 
 of the richest land in the world. They had plenty of labour- 
 ers, and might lash as much work out of them as they 
 pleased. They had a tight monopoly, so tight that not even 
 the sugar of England's other dominions of India or Singa- 
 pore was allowed to compete. Yet, despite all this, even 
 from the beginning of the century, the planters were con- 
 tinually laying before the Colonial Secretary and Parliament 
 memorials which might truly be said to have been " written 
 within and without, with lamentation and mourning and 
 woe." Even in 1805, before the abolition of the African slave 
 trade, the planters described their condition to be one of in- 
 creasing embarrassment and impending ruin, as indeed it was. 
 
 If we reproduced these now forgotten complaints of the 
 planters, they would seem worse bores than Cowper's friend, 
 who 
 
 " thought he should have died, he was so bad — 
 His peevish hearers almost wish'd he had." 
 
 We will only therefore shew what the pecuniary condition of 
 the planters was in 1830, when slavery and monopoly were 
 at their zenith. Nor let it be said that their deep distress 
 was owing to the anti-slavery agitation. They do not so 
 much as allude to it.
 
 XU. INQUIRY INTO 
 
 Lord Chandos, in 1830, presented a petition from the West 
 India merchants and planters, setting forth "the extreme 
 distress under which they labour;" and he declared in his 
 speech that it was " not possible for them to bear up against 
 such a pressure any longer." . . . . " They are reduced to a 
 state in which they are obliged earnestly to solicit relief 
 from Parliament." Mr Bright said, "The distress of the 
 West India colonial body is unparalleled in the country. 
 Many families who formerly lived in comparative affluence 
 are reduced to absolute penury." The West India Reporter 
 also quotes a report on the commercial state of the West 
 Indies, which said, " There are the strongest concurrent 
 testimonies and proofs that, unless some speedy and efficient 
 measures of relief are adopted, the ruin of a great number of 
 the planters must inevitably very soon take place." ^lean- 
 while, production was decreasing as well. Thus in the five 
 years ending with 1820, the export of sugar from Jamaica 
 had been 585,172 hogsheads ; but had fallen to 493,784 in 
 the five years ending with 1830, — a decrease of no less than 
 91,388 hogsheads. Nay, in the ten years ending with 1830, 
 the decrease was no less than 201,843 hogsheads from the 
 amount in the ten years ending with 1820.* 
 
 Another fact plainly shews that these distresses would only 
 have grown deeper and heavier had slavery been allowed to 
 go on. In the Dutch colony of Surinam, the very same ruin 
 has come on, which befell our own islands. The fact that 
 slavery was left standing has made not the least difference. 
 Here we have a large colony, with slavery preserved in all 
 its force and beauty. And what is the result 1 " Out of 917 
 plantations, 630 have been totally abandoned ! " " Of the re- 
 mainder, G5 grow nothing but wood or provisions." And the 
 small balance arc stated to be on the road to destruction. 
 
 Tlie state of things, then, with which the statesmen of 1833 
 had to grapple was this : — A system kept going by the sheer 
 force of the law, which allowed no rights whatever to some 
 fi00,()00 serfs, which regarded tliem as beasts of burden, 
 made for nothing but to enrich a few English families by 
 tlicir forced toil; which was slaughtering these workmen ; 
 which at tlie sann^ time had brought down their owners to a 
 state of " un))aralleled" distress; had reduced these noble- 
 men and gentlemen of England to the degrading necessity 
 of "earnestly" begging i'arliamcnt for "relief;' and was 
 
 * Appendix. Bigclow's "Jamaica."
 
 THE RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION". XUl 
 
 steadily diminishing tlie productive power of these fertile 
 islands. Such was the result of the defiance that had been 
 hurled at the laws of nature. Massacre of the working 
 class ; ruin of the proprietors ; such was the work that sla- 
 very and monopoly were doing under the sun. And this is 
 the state of things to which many eyes still look back with 
 tender regrets ! Yet Mr Carlyle himself, the chief hater of 
 the philanthropists, with his wonted force, has told us 
 that— 
 
 " To prosper in this world, to gain felicity, victory, and improvement, 
 either for a man or a nation, there is but one thing requisite, — that the 
 man or nation can discern what the true regulations of the universe are 
 in regard to him and his pursuits, and can faithfully and steadily follow 
 these. These will lead him to victory. Whoever it may be that sets 
 him in the way of these .... sets him in the sure way to please the 
 Author of this universe, and is his friend of friends. And, again, who- 
 ever does the contrary is, for a like reason, his enemy of enemies. This 
 may be taken as fixed." 
 
 Taken as fixed it certainly may be ; and fixed it plainly 
 was in the West Indies, where the artificial arbitrary inter- 
 ference of law with the natural freedom of man and freedom 
 of trade, was bringing about the extinction of the working 
 class, and was whirling their masters along to utter ruin. 
 
 [In the original Essay there follows, at this point, an in- 
 vestigation into the history of the West Indies duruig the 
 calamitous period which ensued after the destruction of their 
 monopoly in 1846 ; and which leads to the conclusion, that 
 so rotten and ruinous was the state of afi'airs generated by 
 slavery and monopoly together, that a collapse, sooner or later, 
 was inevitable, and almost (as in Ireland) a great good, as 
 clearing the ground for a happier order of things.*] 
 
 And now let us bid adieu to " the dreadful past." Those 
 times, thank God, are clean gone for ever. Never again in 
 the West Indies will the hand of man be chained, or his in- 
 dustry cramped, by the law of England. That wickedness, 
 that folly, is dead : and the misery they caused, that, too, is 
 over. The anguish of the slave, his cry of " Think me no 
 man 1 " as his flesh was torn by the lash, is heard no more. 
 His former owner, impoverished, broken-hearted, has passed 
 away. The old order has given place to new. But here we 
 come to the main question of all, — to the question. Was that 
 crash of 1847 but a passing hurricane, or was it the beginning 
 of an unchangeable doom 1 Are the West Indies ruined ? 
 
 * My present limits compel me to omit this portion; but the whole Essay 
 has been rciJublished by Messrs Longman.
 
 Xiv INQUIRY INTO 
 
 Was their knell sounded by the philanthropists and free- 
 traders, who broke the slave's bonds, and stripped those 
 islands of Protection t Is it true that the West Indies are, 
 year by year, sinking deeper and deeper into barbarism and 
 poverty, or has the groundwork been laid of a great and sound 
 well-being 1 
 
 But for the irresistible force of the official reports and 
 statistics we shall bring forward, we might hardly dare to 
 utter our reply. So little has the eye of this country been 
 drawn to the West Indies since the time of their tribulation, 
 that few are aware of what has been since going on ; and the 
 world does not dream but that, as their groans are no longer 
 heard, they are silent in death. And yet, in truth, the West 
 Indies are rising with great speed to a height of wealth, hap- 
 piness, and comfort, unknown to them before. The two 
 gi-eat experiments, the experiment of emancipation and the 
 experiment of free trade, have been followed by a success 
 which, for a while, was dashed with disappointment, but 
 which, year by year, is growing more and more decisive. The 
 application of sound principles, though it may have hastened 
 a catastrophe which could not have been long delayed ; 
 though, as Mr Bigelow says, it " precipitated a result which 
 was inevitable," yet now is bringing our sugar islands round 
 to a state of true prosperity. 
 
 We have already remarked that, when the artificial com- 
 pulsion Avhich had concentrated almost the whole labouring 
 force of the slave colonies on the one work of sugar-making, 
 — when that artificial compulsion was taken away, there 
 could not fail to be a redistribution of labour. We have 
 pointed out that it was desirable, as well as inevitable, that 
 a variety of work should take the place of that sameness. 
 In fact, the free-trader condemns Protection on that very 
 ground, (amongst others,) that it sets men to work at one 
 kind of production, in lieu of those other kinds for which the 
 soil and the climate would be more fit. We should not, there- 
 fore, have folt any disappointment had other occupations 
 almost wholly displaced the production of the old staples. 
 It would not have liecn the smallest proof that our islands 
 were ruined. It might liave come from a wiser and more 
 profitable omploynicnt of labour. This, however, lias not 
 been the result. Strangely enough, frcedt)m of labour and of 
 trade have not lessened but have actually increased the pro- 
 duction of sugar in our former slave colonies ! In the last
 
 THE RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION. XV 
 
 two clear years of slavery, (1832 and 1833,) they exported 
 to Great Britain, 8,471,744 cwt. In the two years 1856, 
 1857, they exported to Great Britain alone, 8,736,654 cwt.* 
 And besides that, a large trade, altogether new, has sprung 
 up with Australia, the United States, and other countries, of 
 which we have no account. 
 
 And more striking stiU is the result, if we leave out the one 
 island of Jamaica, where mismanagement and financial dis- 
 orders (as we shall shew presently) have clogged her grievously. 
 Passing by that one island, and taking into account the other 
 sixteen, we find, that whereas, in the last six years of slavery, 
 they exported on an average 3,007,782 1 cwt. of sugar, in the 
 last fom' years. Great Britian alone has received from them 
 4,055,521 cwt., besides their new trade to foreign lands. 
 
 To this it may be objected that we include Mauritius, 
 which had the advantage of a large importation of coolies, 
 by whom the sugar is mainly produced. That is true. But 
 it is to be borne in mind that the influx of free labour is ex- 
 actly one of those advantages of which a land is debarred by 
 slavery. It is a part of the curse of slavery that it repels the 
 free man. When we are told that to judge of the effect of 
 emancipation we must exclude those colonies that imported 
 coolies, we reply at once that this useful importation has 
 been one of the many blessings that freedom has brought in 
 her train. But waiving this, and excluding the Mauritius as 
 well as Jamaica, the remaining fifteen sugar islands produced 
 in the three last years, (1855-6-7,) 7,427,618 cwt. against 
 7,405,849, in the last three years of slavery. 
 
 It is plain, then, that as regards seventeen out of the 
 eighteen islands, more wealth is produced, even of that 
 particular species Avhich might have been expected to fall off. 
 
 It is so important to give a correct idea of the real ultimate 
 effect of free labour and free trade upon our West Indies, 
 that, at the risk of seeming tedious, we shall venture to give a 
 series of extracts from the governors' reports, describing the 
 state and prospects of each colony. But lest it should be 
 thought that these extracts are carefully culled to produce a 
 particular impression, and that if the reader had the whole 
 reports before him he would find complaints and lamentations, 
 we may at once say, that they appear to us to be fair samples 
 
 * Sugar Return, 1858. 
 
 f This average is given in "The State of the West Indies in 1855," a Colonial- 
 Office document, not published, p. 19.
 
 XVI INQTnRY INTO 
 
 of the views entertained by the Governors, and also by other 
 gentlemen acquainted with the West Indies. The language 
 of complaint is no longer heard. Throughout these colonies 
 hope and congratulation seem to have taken the place of 
 irritation and despair.* 
 
 " Antigua. — Satisfactory evidence is afforded, by the reve- 
 nue returns, of increase in trade and mercantile business, 
 consequent upon the revival of agricultural prosperity." t 
 
 " Bahamas. — The rapidity with which these islands are ad- 
 vancing is indicated by the fact that the exports and im- 
 ports rose from £201,497 in 1854, to £304,421 in 1855, an in- 
 crease of £102,924 in one year. Twenty-three vessels were 
 built in the colony in the year 1855. J The Governor refers, 
 in 1851, to the 'great and important change for the better' 
 in the condition of the people, which he mainly attributes to 
 improved education." 
 
 '' JSarbadoes. — 1853. 'Vast increase of trade.' ' So far the 
 success of cultivation by free labour in Barbadoes is unques- 
 tionable.' 'In 1851 more sugar shipped from this island 
 than in any one year since it has been peopled ; and it is a 
 remarkable fact that there ■will be more labourers' sugar made 
 this year than previously.' " 
 
 "Sugar exported in 1842, 21,545 hogsheads; in 1852, 
 48,785 ; the 'increase being 27,240 hogsheads.' " 
 
 In 1858, "a great increase in the value of the exports." 
 "The large proportion of land acquired by the labouring 
 classes furnishes striking evidence of their industry." 
 
 Dominica. — 1853. "The iady maintenance of production 
 is full of promise as to the future." § The exports shew a 
 considerable increase under heads of sugar, rum, coffee, cocoa, 
 oranges, fruits, hides, hard wood, and cotton. 1857. " Very 
 considerable increase in revenue, and an equally marked im- 
 provement in the amount of imports." The Governor also 
 dwells on the industry of the bulk of the population, and in 
 the great amount of general comfort and independence 
 among the labouring class, in which their industry has re- 
 sulted. || 
 
 " The native labourer, whoso growing independence, manifested in the 
 ' tmall patches of caues and little wooden mills here and there dotting 
 
 • Wc liavc alwayK t.ikoii llio last ac- tlio later tho report the more gratify- 
 
 count wo could find; but very often iiiffitis found to bo. 
 
 tliolJovcniorHHcnd reports full of local t Hcport, 18.'>8. J Ibid. 1856. 
 
 nffairB, with no rofcruiico to the gone- g Keport, 1854. || Report, 1858. 
 rul btuto of tho ialund. lu all cuuea,
 
 THE RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION". XVU 
 
 the chequered plain around,' the significance of which was so pointedly 
 alluded to in the last despatch of your Excellency's predecessor, has 
 risen a step higher, and we now see him becoming the lessee of large 
 sugar plantations regularly established, with all the usual appliances. 
 As witness, for example, the lessee of Hope Vale Estate, containing 492 
 acres, with water mill and works complete ; the lessee of Perseverance 
 Estate, containing 522 acres, with steam engine and other apparatus 
 complete; and the lessee of Mount Hardman, formerly a sugar estate, 
 and lately a cattle farm, with 400 acres of pasture and wood, soon to be 
 revived into its former state of flourishing luxuriance." 
 
 From Grenada -vve liear (1858) that "contentment appears 
 to pervade all classes of the community. A proprietary body 
 of considerable magnitude and importance has already risen 
 from the labouring class. State of the finances most satis- 
 factory," — owing to augmentation in the imports. Some re- 
 marks on the want of labour, but the trade of the island rose 
 in the last two years of which we have returns, (1851 and 
 1852,) from £205,282 to £293,696, an increase of £88,414. 
 
 In the Tivies of October 15, 1858, the Grenada Report is 
 that " a greatly extended surface is covered by (sugar) culti- 
 vation." A considerable increase is noted in the exports of 
 sugar, rum, and cocoa. 
 
 Guiana. — None of the West Indies have gone through a 
 harder struggle. " The fall of prices in 1847 and 1848 was 
 so sudden and so enormous as to have almost annihilated 
 the colony at that crisis," writes the Governor in 1852 ; but 
 he goes on to state, that now " the revenue is flourishing, 
 population augmenting, education spreading, crime diminish- 
 ing, and trade increasing." 
 
 Jamaica. — This island has suffered far more severely, 
 and has progressed far more slowly thf i any other. Sir 
 Henry Barkly, the ablest Governor she has had, attributes this 
 depression mainly to the glaring defects of her system of 
 government ; and Sir Charles Grey speaks of it in the same 
 terms. "There is," he says, "no system or consistency 
 whatever in the conduct of the financial affairs of the colony, 
 nor any recognised organ of government or legislature which 
 has the power to bring about effective improvements." 
 Some useful changes, however, have lately been made, and a 
 decided improvement is shemng itself in the exports and 
 imports of the colony. 
 
 Montserrat. — After referring to " the improved and im- 
 proving state of the community, as allowed on all hands," 
 and giving various details, the Governor says, (in 1853,) " So 
 much for the increase of confidence, enterprise, and industry 
 
 B
 
 XVm INQUIRY INTO 
 
 in Montserrat. No island in these seas exhibits a more de- 
 cisive tendency to social and moral regeneration and improve- 
 ment. The rural population are quiet, contented, and orderly. 
 Their condition one of great comfort." A new system of 
 taxation (as we understand, throwing it off imports upon real 
 property) came into operation in June 1856, and with such 
 strong and powerful effect, that the imports more than 
 doubled in value in the course of the year ! 
 
 Xevis. — The case of this island is peculiarly interesting, 
 because in it an experiment has been tried in taxation, which 
 may perhaps some day become generally adopted throughout 
 the world. Things in Nevis had got to such a desperate 
 state — they were, in fact, past all bearing — that at last Mr 
 President Seymour, a gentleman of remarkable boldness and 
 vigour, induced the legislature to consent to a radical change 
 in the fiscal system. The import duties were totally abolish- 
 ed : and a tax of 20 per cent placed on rentals. 
 
 Small as the field was in which this experiment was tried, 
 its astonishing results are worth noting by statesmen. The 
 new system came into play, March 1856. In that year the 
 imports rose from =£19,728 to ^34,449. New shops were 
 speedily opened. House-rent rose threefold. The sound of 
 the hammer was heard, and the smell of fresh paint expe- 
 rienced, where all had been crumbling decay. " The roads 
 appear as if the greater part of the population had new 
 clothed themselves, and in the harbour, so often deserted, I 
 now count ten ships of considerable burden." * 
 
 St Kiits. — "A larger quantity of sugar is produced now than 
 in the time of slavery," f (though on a smaller area.) "The 
 agricultural prospects of the island are most encouraging. 
 Its financial condition continues satisfactory; so do the edu- 
 cation returns. The whole trade increased from £246,536, 
 in 1856, to £352,769, in 1857 — an increase of £106,233 in 
 one year ! Attendance in schools steadily increasing ; % 
 crime steadily diminishing.'' § 
 
 St Lxicia. — "At no period in licr history was there a greater 
 breadth of land imder sugar cultivation than at the present 
 moment." || The education returns are " on the Avhole ex- 
 
 * Report, ISnT. President Rumliold, improvement: cultivation appears to 
 
 who Hucccodod rrcsidctit Seymour, be carefully attended to Thero 
 
 disapproved uf the diango, on account is ample room to hope for the gradual 
 
 of tiio (^catcr diniciilty of raising re- re,;cneratiiin of tlio colony." 
 venue Ijy direct taxation. Ho nays, t Report. 1850. t Ibid. 1858. 
 
 h>iwcvcr, tliiit "tlicie appears now to § Ibid. 1850. || Ibid. 1853. 
 
 bu at work an iiidu-.trious spii-it of
 
 THE RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION". XIX 
 
 tremely satisfactory." There seems to tlie Governor to be 
 "an increasing desire on the part of a very respectable* por- 
 tion of the inhabitants to avail themselves of the schools." 
 In 1857, the administrator notes the extension of cane cul- 
 tivation ; t and says that " the aspect of the country is 
 more promising: the prospects of the agriculturist are en- 
 couraging." 
 
 Sugar exported from 1838-1842, 4,588,475 lbs.; and from 
 1852-1856, 6,392,093 lbs.; the increase being 1,803,618 lbs. 
 
 St Vincent. — In 1852 the Governor described the financial 
 management as " inexcusable." In 1856 important reforms 
 were made. The result is, that, in 1857, he says, "it is mat- 
 ter of great satisfaction to me to state that .... the foun- 
 dation has been laid for a great and progressive improvement." 
 He speaks of extended cultivation, and of " a really sound 
 and healthy state of the colony at present, and a cheering 
 and promising prospect for the future." He says the condi- 
 tion of the labourer is almost universally one of comfort ; 
 and describes the rising villages, the growing number of 
 freeholders and leaseholders, and the steady progressive in- 
 crease in the value of imports. X In 1858 he describes the 
 colony as in a " most satisfactory state." " Agricultural 
 operations largely extended ; " his anticipation of its conti- 
 nued progress and prosperity had been fully realised. Imports 
 and exports had increased from £249,526 in 1856, to £406,159 
 in 1857; an increase of £156,633 in one year. § And he 
 expressly attributes it to "increased cultivation and pro- 
 sperity." He says, "the cheerful prospects of 1856 are being 
 fully realised. The present position of St Vincent is most 
 satisfactory, and its future most promising." 
 
 In Tobago, again, the accounts were dismal, in 1852 and 
 1853, which the Governor said was beyond doubt o^ving to 
 the state of its financial affairs. In 1856, however, an im- 
 proved system having been adopted, the result is, that already 
 the Governor "has much satisfaction in taking a more en- 
 couraging view of the prospects of the colony." || A marked 
 improvement is visible in the revenue returns. The labourers 
 are described as well behaved and industrious. IT 
 
 Tortola under slavery exported 15,559 cwt. of sugar. It 
 now exports none at all. But the change is wholly an advan- 
 tage. The island is singularly suitable for the raising of 
 
 • In the sense of a very large portion. t Report, 1852. 
 
 I Ibid. 1857. § Ibid. 1858. |1 Ibid. 1858. . t Ibid.
 
 XX INQUIRY INTO 
 
 stock, and accordingly " all the people, witli few exceptions, 
 are owners of cattle, which, they dispose of to great advan- 
 tage." 
 
 " It is very gi'atifying to be able to observe that the labour- 
 ing popidation appear fully sensible of the advantages of 
 education to their children, and that the latter manifest a 
 great desire to benefit by the opportunity afforded them." 
 
 Tnnidad is highly flourishing. The whole trade has in- 
 creased from a yearly average under slavery, of ^810,636, to 
 £1,239,241 in 1856, an increase of £428,605. In 1852 the 
 crop was the largest ever shipped from the island ; and it 
 has been extending since, — " marked improvement in the 
 cultivation of the sugar estates."* Export of sugar rose from 
 an average of 310,797 cvvt. under slavery, to one of 426,042 
 in the seven years ending 1854. 
 
 These specific accounts of the several islands are borne out 
 by the statistics and reports that relate to our West Indies 
 en masse. To men of busmess one fact will seem almost 
 enough by itself to shew their sound commercial state, name- 
 ly, that in the year 1857 the Colonial Bank received biUs 
 from the West Indies to the amount of more than £1,300,000, 
 and less than £8000 were returned, t Nor was there a single 
 failure in the West India trade during the severe commercial 
 crisis in the autumn of that year. Furthermore, cofiee, cotton, 
 wool, sugar, rum, cocoa, are all exported in increasing quanti- 
 ties. The total exports from Great Britain to the West Indies in 
 1 8S7 were valued at half-a-miUion more than the average of the 
 preceding ten years, and actually in that year equalled her 
 exports to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Azores, Ma- 
 deira, and Morocco, all combined. J The exports and imports 
 together of the West Indies amounted, in the four years end- 
 ing with 1853, to just £32,500,000 ; and in the four years 
 ending with 1857, to just £37,000,000, an increase of 
 £4,500,000 in four years. In the year 1847, the total trade, 
 to and fro, of those islands was valued at £10,735,000, and 
 (as noted above) the value of the sugar alonu imported from 
 them into the United Kingdom, in that year, was no less than 
 £5,018,000! 
 
 These official statistics and reports absolutely demonstrate 
 the fact that the West Indies are rapidly advancing in wealth 
 and prosperity; nor must it be sujiposed that they are merely 
 
 • Report, 1853. f Boo Rcjoort of Colonial Bank, for Juno 30, 1857. 
 
 } Trude and Navigation Accounts, IHM.
 
 THE RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION. XXI 
 
 *' putting money in their purse," without a corresponding ad- 
 vance in the general character of the people. In this respect 
 the change from the old state of things is described on all 
 hands as being most gratifying ; * and especially in those thou- 
 sands of cases where the negroes have built altogether new 
 villages for themselves. The cottages are either neatly 
 thatched, or shingled with pieces of hard wood. Some are 
 built of stone or wood ; but generally are plastered also on 
 the outside, and whitewashed. Many are ornamented with 
 a portico in front, to screen the sitting apartment from sun 
 and rain ; while for the admission of light and air, as well as 
 to add to their appearance, they exhibit either shutters or 
 jalousies, painted green, or small glass windows. 
 
 " There is usually a sleeping apartment at each end and a sitting- 
 room in the centre. The floors are in most instances terraced, although 
 boarded ones for sleeping-rooms are becoming common. Many of the 
 latter contain good mahogany bedsteads, a washing-stand, a looking- 
 glass, and chairs. The middle apartment is usually furnished with a 
 sideboard, displaying sundry articles of crockery ware, some decent- 
 looking chairs, and not unfrequently with a few broadsheets of the Tract 
 Society hung round the walls in neat frames of cedar. For cooking food, 
 and other domestic purposes, a little room or two is erected at the back 
 of the cottage, where are also arranged the various conveniences for 
 keeping domestic stock. The villages are laid out in regular order, 
 being divided into lots more or less intersected by roads or streets. The 
 plots are usually in the form of an oblong square. The cottage is situa- 
 ted at an equal distance from each side of the allotment, and at about 
 eight or ten feet from the public thoroughfare. The piece of ground in 
 front is, in some instances, cultivated in the style of a European gar- 
 den, displaying rose-bushes, and other flowering shrubs, among the 
 choicer vegetable productions ; while the remainder is covered with all 
 the substantial vegetables and fruits of the country heterogeneouslj 
 intermixed." 
 
 The result is, that they present " a very pleasing appear- 
 ance." Sir Henry Barkly was reminded by those in the hills 
 of the villages in Switzerland, and he says they have a de- 
 cided air of progresive civilisation and comfort about them ; 
 and that it is quite clear, whatever may be the case elsewhere, 
 that their inhabitants are not retrograding either in their 
 moral or physical condition. And the same despatch con- 
 tains a report by a stipendiary magistrate, and speaks of "the 
 thousands of well cultivated settlements, with their tastefully 
 arranged cottages and gardens, which have given quite a 
 different appearance to the country since August 1838, and 
 bespeak the prosperity and comfort of the occupants, and 
 
 * See " Antigua and the Autiguans;" Philippe's "Jamaica," &c. itc; Sir H, 
 Barkly's Journal, in 1S53, (P. P.) Despatch, May, 1854.
 
 XXU INQUIRY INTO 
 
 present a cheering prospect, and an encouraging hope for the 
 future."* Another magistrate reports to him that the ad- 
 vancement in the condition of the labouring class is unmis- 
 takably apparent : — 
 
 " The peasantry, who were formerly unused to domestic comfort and 
 a state of independence, are now otherwise circumstanced. A very large 
 number of them are owners of freehold properties, on which they are 
 comfortably located. They also own a large number of horses, hogs, and 
 other live stock. They trade extensively in the native products of the 
 parish, which they cultivate in such abundance, that boats are con- 
 stantly conveying cargoes of yams, cocoas, and plantains to the port of 
 Falmouth in the parish of Trelawney, where they are scarce, and in 
 great demand. The vessels employed in this traffic are almost exclu- 
 sively their own property. The degrading practice of concubinage has 
 been forsaken by a large number, who have embraced the marriage 
 state, and the weekly publication of intended matrimonial alliances is 
 proof that matrimony among them is on the increase. They contribute 
 more largely than any other class to the general taxation of the parish, 
 and not a few enjoy and exercise electoral rights. Generally they may 
 be said to be a fair specimen of the labouring people of this island ; will- 
 ing and tractable, civil and obedient, confiding in those who employ 
 them, often toiling on estates for weeks and months in expectation of 
 reward, but in many instances ill-requited for their confidence and la- 
 bour by disappointment and non-payment." 
 
 The number of such settlements established since emanci- 
 pation is almost incredible. Within eight years of that event, 
 nearly two hundred villages of the kind we have been de- 
 scribing, had been built, and full 100,000 acres of land 
 purchased, by the negroes of Jamaica alone. A statement 
 was read in the House of Commons, in 1842, by Lord Stanley 
 (then Colonial Minister,) that " it would appear wonderful 
 how so much had been accomplished in the island, in build- 
 ing, planting, digging, and making fences. The number of 
 freeholders who have become freeholders hy their accumulation 
 and industry in the island of Jamaica amounted, in 1840, tc 
 7,340." 
 
 It is usual to fancy that the free negroes desert the estates 
 to squat upon wild lands ; but although this has occasionally 
 been the case, by far the greater number of them have bought 
 land, and that at a good price, for their settlements. And 
 the negro proprietor is just as proud of his own home and 
 freehold as any Englishman might be. The names they give 
 them may be taken as a slight indication of their feelings : 
 "Content my own," "Comfort Castle," "Happy Hut," 
 "Thank God to sec it," and so forth. One is mentioned by 
 the ivcv. Mr i'liilippo, as being entitled "Occasion call," 
 
 • Sir II. Darkly, ISO I. Appendix.
 
 THE RESULTS OP EMANCIPATION. XXUl 
 
 which the owner explained thus : " If any person have busi- 
 ness wid me, him can come in ; but if him don't want me in 
 pottickler, me no wants him company, and him no 'casion to 
 come." 
 
 In appearance, very many of the negroes have by no means 
 a disagreeable exterior. In fact the clever authoress of 
 "Antigua and the Antiguans" declares that many of the 
 Creole* negroes may be termed very good-looking. High 
 and well-formed foreheads, black and sparkling eyes, aquiline 
 noses, and lips with only a slight pout, are not uncommon, 
 though others of the same race are more like apes than human 
 beings. Both men and women, she tells us, are seldom to 
 be seen except in the most becoming attire ; the dress of the 
 women generally consisting of a printed or cotton gown, with 
 a white handkerchief tied round their heads like a tmrban, 
 and a neat straw hat trimmed with white ribband. But on 
 high days and festivals, it must be owned that the splendour 
 of the negro array is not in the purest taste. One of the 
 writers on the West Indies was shocked by seeing a negress 
 who actually was adorned with pink stockings, yellow shoes, 
 and a bonnet of green trimmed with pink, and displaying a 
 blue rose with silver leaves ! Silks, satins, muslins, and 
 crapes are plentifully used, and even the " gentlemen " will 
 come out on occasion in a traly glorious costume ; with vel- 
 vet collars, radiant waistcoats, and boots expressly made to 
 " stamp and creak " well. They all carry umbrellas, silk if 
 possible ; and pocket-handkerchiefs, with one end making its 
 appearance from the coat pocket. We are told, however, 
 that the love for gaudy colours is disappearing ; and that 
 modesty and sensibility are becoming increasingly apparent 
 in the female sex. In their names, the march of intellect has 
 extinguished the Sambos, Pompeys, and Darkeys of former 
 days, and now the shining pickaninnies rejoice in the appella- 
 tions of " Adeline Floretta," " Rosalind Monemia," "Alonzo 
 Frederick," and so forth. One cannot but smile at these little 
 affectations ; but all this shews a progress towards refine- 
 ment and civilisation, though some of its offshoots are laugh- 
 able. The same may be said of their manners, in which a 
 surprising improvement has taken place. " The uncouth ad- 
 dress and sullen aspect and carriage of the slaves " have been 
 replaced by a great deal of graceful kindliness and ease 
 towards strangers, and a politeness and respect to each other 
 
 * ». e., Native : not imported from Africa.
 
 XXIV INQUIRY INTO 
 
 whicli may often approach extravagance, but is mucli better 
 than the rough, address so common in many parts of Eng- 
 land among the working classes. No negro peasant meets 
 another without exchanging salutations and inquiries. Age 
 is particiJarly venerated, and the noisy little negroes at their 
 sport will stop while one of their old people are passing, 
 with, " How dy'e ma'm,'' and " How dy'e me picnee," is the 
 courteous reply. Every one praises their generosity and 
 kindness. To the miserable pauper whites, who abound in 
 some of the West Indies (and whose squalor and feebleness 
 shew the wisdom of Carlyle's expectation that the West 
 Indies will some day be saved by a population of "true 
 splinters of the old Harz rock, heroic white men, worthy to 
 be called old Saxons ") they are often known to act the part 
 of guardian angels. They will work for them, feed them, 
 clothe them, without the slightest wish or prospect of re- 
 ceiving remuneration. 
 
 They are rising, too, with rapidity in the social scale, and 
 would seem to be fit for any kind of employment. Mr Baird 
 mentions that in the legislatures of many of the islands 
 there are already sundry negro members, as well as many 
 gentlemen of colour. When Mr Bigelow visited Jamaica, 
 there were ten or a dozen coloured men in the Legislative 
 Assembly, which consists altogether of about fifty members; 
 and the police force, the oflS.cers of the penitentiary, the offi- 
 cers of the courts of justice, as well as some of the barristers, 
 Avere coloured men ; and we believe they have since been 
 freely admitted to the magistracy and to political office. The 
 old prejudices against African blood is disappearing, though 
 under slavery it was intensely strong ; so much so, that the 
 coloured people were generally not allowed to be buried in 
 the same churchyard with the whites. Nay, at St John's, in 
 Antigua, the church bell was not allowed to be profaned by 
 tolling for the demise of these degraded people, and a smaller 
 one was actually provided for that purpose ! 
 
 Year by year, too, education is making way ; and though 
 in some districts it is complained that the negroes do not 
 shew eagerness to obtain schooling for their children, from 
 others very satisfactoiy reports are sent ; and the governors, 
 almost without exception, state that crime is diminishing in 
 the islands. In fact, crime of an atrocious character is very 
 rare indeed. 'J'lie negroes arc guilty of a great deal of petty 
 pilfering, and they are also regardless of truth ; but, happily,
 
 THE RESULTS OP EMANCIPATION. XXV 
 
 drunkenness is not one of their prevailing faults; nor are 
 they given to deeds of violence, or of deliberate villany. 
 They are a merry, light-hearted, and kindly people ; some- 
 what shallow and thoughtless, and with the faults that come 
 of that character ; but docile, orderly, and peaceable. 
 
 We must now conclude. The two main conclusions which 
 are enforced upon us by our investigation are these. The 
 one, that slavery and monopoly were bearing the West Indies 
 to ruin. The other, that under free labour and free trade 
 they are rising to wealth. Under slavery and monopoly, the 
 labouring class was miserable and was perishing miserably. 
 Under slavery and monopoly, the owners of the soil were re- 
 duced to the greatest pitch of distress. The state of affairs 
 which had arisen under this old dispensation had rendered 
 a crash some day inevitable. But when once that blow had 
 fallen, and the old things had passed away, and the new 
 things had come, then the inherent virtue of the principle of 
 freedom became manifest ; and it is now working out the 
 most beneficent, the most astonishing — what a few years ago 
 would have seemed the most incredible results. Wisdom 
 has been justified of her children. Seeking only to do the 
 thing that was right and noble, — seeking not to please 
 herself, but to do justice, — England set free her slaves. 
 It is plain that but for that measure, her colonies would have 
 sunk to irretrievable destruction. It proves now that by that 
 measure she has set them on the way to happiness and pro- 
 sperity ; that not only are the former slaves enjoying a degree 
 of comfort and independence almost unparalleled, but that 
 our own trade with these islands is becoming of higher and 
 higher value. They are yearly enriching us more and more 
 with the wealth of their fertile soil. Instead of being the 
 plague of statesmen, the disgrace of England, they are be- 
 coming invaluable possessions to the British Crown. Never 
 did any deed of any nation shew more signally that to do right 
 is the truest prudence, than the great deed of emancipation. 
 
 " Not once or twice, in our rough island story, 
 The path of duty was the way to glory." 
 
 And in her dealings with the negro race, both in the West 
 Indies and in Africa, England having " only thirsted for the 
 right," has already begun to find the wisdom of that course. 
 The fight for freedom has been fought amid great discourage- 
 ments ; for a time there were heart-breaking drawbacks to 
 the success attained. But it has been fought with a good
 
 XXvi INQXriRY INTO THE KESTJLTS OF EMANCIPATIOTT. 
 
 courage. And now tlie spread of commerce and civilisation 
 in West Africa; the happiness of the West Indian peasantry; 
 the improving agriculture, the extending trade of these 
 islands ; the cheering news which governor after governor is 
 sending home of their thriving state, — such is the reward, 
 to herself, as well as to them, which England is reaping, from 
 a generous, self-denying. Christian policy.
 
 LIFE 
 
 or 
 
 SIR THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, BART. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 1786-1802. 
 
 The family from wHch. Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton was 
 descended, resided, about the middle of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, at Sudbury, in Suffolk, and subsequently at Cogges- 
 hall, in Essex. At the latter place, William Buxton, his 
 lineal ancestor, died in 1624. Thomas, the son of William 
 Buxton, claimed and received from the Heralds' College, 
 in 1634, the arms borne by the family of the same name 
 settled before 1478 at Tybenham, in Norfolk, and now re- 
 presented by Sir Robert Jacob Buxton, Bart. 
 
 Isaac Buxton, a merchant, and the fifth in direct descent 
 from William, married Sarah Fowell, an heiress ; connected 
 with the family of the Fowells, of Fowelscombe, in Devon- 
 shire. From her was derived the name of Fowell, first 
 borne by her eldest son, who married Anna, daughter of 
 Osgood Hanbury, Esq., of Holfield Grange, in Essex. The 
 first Thomas Fowell Buxton lived at Earl's Colne, iu the 
 same county, but was residing at Castle Hedingham when 
 his eldest son, Thomas Fowell, the subject of this memoir, 
 was born, on the 1st of April 1786. 
 
 Mr Buxton was a man of a gentle and kindly disposition, 
 devoted to field sports, and highly popular in his neighbour-
 
 2 HIS CHILDHOOD. [JEt. 1-16. 
 
 hood, where he exercised hospitality on a liberal scale. 
 Having been appointed High Sheriff of the county, he 
 availed himself of the authority of Ms office to relieve the 
 miseries of the prisoners under his superintendence, visiting 
 them sedulously, notwithstanding the prevalence of the jail 
 fever. He died at Earl's Colne, in 1792, leaving his widow 
 with three sons and two daughters. 
 
 The eldest boy, Thomas Powell, was at this time six 
 years old. He was a vigorous chUd, and early shewed a 
 bold and determined character. As an instance of this it 
 may be mentioned, that when quite a child, while walking 
 with his uncle, Mr Hanbury, he was desired to give a mes- 
 sage to a pig-driver who had passed along the road. He 
 set off in pursuit ; and although one of his shoes was soon 
 lost in the mud, he pushed on through lonely and mtricate 
 lanes, tracking the driver by the footmarks of his pigs, for 
 nearly three miles, into the town of Coggeshall ; nor did he 
 stop until he had overtaken the man, and delivered his 
 message. 
 
 One who knew the boy well in his early days said of 
 him, " He never was a child ; he was a man when in petti- 
 coats." At the age of only four years and a-half, he was 
 sent to a school at Kingston, where he suffered severely from 
 ill-treatment ; and his health giving way (chiefly from the 
 want of sufficient food), he was removed, shortly after his 
 father's death, to the school of Dr Charles Bumey, at Green- 
 wich, where his brothers afterwards jomed him. Here he 
 had none of the hardships to endure, to which he had been 
 subjected at Kingston, and he found in Dr Bumey a kind 
 and judicious master. Upon one occasion, he was accused 
 by an usher of talking during school tune, and desired to 
 learn the collect, epistle, and gospel, as a punishment. 
 When Dr Bumey entered the school, young Buxton ap- 
 pealed to him, stoutly denying the charge. The usher as 
 strongly asserted it ; but Dr Bumey sto])pcd him, saying, 
 " I never found the boy tell a lie, and will not disbelieve 
 liim now." 
 
 He does not appear to have made much progress in his 
 Ktiulics, and his holidays spent at Earl's Colne, where his 
 mother continued to reside, left a deeper trace in his after- 
 life, than tlic time spent at seliuol. Mrs Buxton's character
 
 1786-1802.] HIS MOTHER'S INFLUENCE. 3 
 
 lias been thus briefly described by her son : " My mother 
 was a woman of a very vigorous mind, and possessing many 
 of the generous virtues in a very high degree. She was 
 large-minded about everything ; disinterested almost to an 
 excess ; careless of difiiculty, labour, danger, or expense, in 
 the prosecution of any great object. She had a masculine 
 understanding, great power of mind, great vigour, and was 
 very fearless. With these nobler qualities were united some 
 of the imperfections, which belong to that species of ardent 
 and resolute character." She belonged to the Society of 
 Friends. Her husband being a member of the Church of 
 England, their sons were baptized in infancy ; nor did she 
 ever exert her influence to bring them over to her own per- 
 suasion. She was more anxious to give them a deep regard 
 for the Holy Scriptures, and a lofty moral standard, than 
 to quicken their zeal about the distinctive difi"erences of re- 
 ligious opinion. Her system of education had in it some 
 striking features. There was little indulgence, but much 
 liberty. The boys were free to go where they would, and 
 do what they pleased, and her eldest son especially was 
 allowed to assume almost the position of master in the 
 house. But, on the other hand, her authority, when exer- 
 cised, was paramount over him, as over his brothers and 
 sisters. On being asked by the mother of a large and ill- 
 managed famUy, whether the revolutionary principles of the 
 day were not making way among her boys, her reply was, 
 " I know nothing about revolutionary principles : my rule 
 is that imposed on the people of Boston, — ' implicit obedi- 
 ence, unconditional submission.' " Yet the character of her 
 son Fowell was not without some strong touches of wilful- 
 ness. He has described himself, in more than one of his 
 papers, as having been in his boyhood " of a daring, violent, 
 domineering temper." When this was remarked to his 
 mother, " Never mmd," she would say ; " he is self-willed 
 now — you will see it turn out well in the end." 
 
 Her aim appears to have been, to give her boys a manly 
 and robust character ; and, both by precept and example, 
 she strove to render them self-denying, and, at the same 
 time, thoughtful for others. Long afterwards, when actively 
 occupied in London, her son wrote to her : — " I constantly 
 feel, especially in action and exertion for others, the effects
 
 4 ABRAHAM PLASTOW. [^t. 1-16. 
 
 of principles early planted by you in my mind." He par- 
 ticularly alluded to the abhorrence of slavery and the slave 
 trade, with which she had imbued him. 
 
 His size and strength well fitted him for country amuse- 
 ments ; and he early acquired a strong taste for hunting, 
 shooting, and fishing, under the auspices of the gamekeeper, 
 Abraham Plastow. This gamekeeper was one of those cha- 
 racters occasionally to be met with in the country, uniting 
 straightforward honest simplicity with great shrewdness and 
 humour. He was well fitted to train his three young mas- 
 ters in those habits of fearlessness and hardihood, which their 
 mother wished them to possess. His influence over them 
 is thus described by Mr Buxton, in the following letter : — 
 
 " My father died when I was very young, and I became at ten 
 years old almost as much the master of the family as I am of this 
 family at the present moment. My mother, a woman of great 
 talents and great energy, perpetually inculcated on my brothers and 
 Bisters that they were to obey me, and I was rather encouraged to 
 play the little tyrant. She treated me as an equal, conversed with 
 me, and led me to form and express my opinions without reserve. 
 This system had obvious and great disadvantages, but it was fol- 
 lowed by some few incidental benefits. Throughout life I have 
 acted and thought for myself ; and to this kind of habitual decision 
 I am indebted for all the success I have met with. 
 
 " My ' guide, philosopher, and friend,' was Abraham Plastow, the 
 gamekeeper ; a man for whom I have ever felt, and still feel, very 
 great affection. He was a singular character : in the first place, this 
 tutor of mine could neither read nor write, but his memory was 
 stored with various rustic knowledge. He had more of natural good 
 sense, and what is called mother-wit, than almost any person I have 
 met with since : a knack which he had of putting everything into 
 new and singular lights made him, and still makes him, a most 
 entertaining, and even intellectual companion. He was the most 
 imdaunted of men : I remember my youthful admiration of his ex- 
 ploits on horseback. For a time he hunted my uncle's hounds, and 
 his fearlessness was proverbial. But what made him particularly 
 valuable, were his principles of integrity and honour. He never said 
 or did a thing in the absence of my mother of which she would have 
 disapproved. He always held up the highest standard of integrity, 
 and filled our youthful minds with sentiments as pure and as gene- 
 rous as could be found in the writings of Seneca or Cicero. Such 
 waa my first instructor, and, I must add, my best; for I think I 
 Lave j)ro(ited more by the recollection of his remarks and admoni- 
 tion, tliaii by the more learned and elaborate discourses of all my 
 other tutors. Ho was our playfellow and tutor; ho rode with us, 
 fished with us, sliot with us, upon aU occasions." 
 
 One among many anecdotes remembered of this man,
 
 1786-1802.] BELLFIELD. 5 
 
 may be recorded. The young Buxtons had been sent out 
 hunting, and, as usual, under Abraham's care. As they 
 were approaching the scene of sport, Fowell made use of an 
 improper expression, upon which the gamekeeper insisted 
 upon his returning home at once, and carried his point. 
 
 Occasionally the holidays were passed by the children 
 with their grandmother, either in London or at Bellfield, 
 her country-house, near Weymouth. The formality of her 
 life in town was rather unpalatable to them : even the ex- 
 ceptions to her rules were methodically arranged; her 
 Sunday discipline, for example, was very strict, but on one 
 (and only one) Sunday in the year, she gave the children 
 the treat of a drive in the park. A visit to Bellfield was 
 more attractive, and there young Buxton spent many of the 
 happiest hours of his boyhood. The house, which, at the 
 death of his grandmother, became his own, (though till 
 lately inhabited by his uncle Mr Charles Buxton,) is beauti- 
 fully situated, commanding fine views of Weymouth Bay 
 and the Island of Portland. To this spot he ever continued 
 much attached, and his letters from thence always mention 
 his great enjoyment of its beauties. 
 
 Weymouth was at this period the favourite resort of 
 George III., and the King and royal family frequently 
 visited Mrs Buxton. Her grandchildren always retained 
 a vivid impression of the cordial kindness of their royal 
 guests. 
 
 At the age of fifteen, after spending eight years at Dr 
 Burney's, without making any great advances in learning, 
 he persuaded his mother to allow him to reside at home ; 
 and there he remained for many months, devoting the chief 
 part of his time to sporting, and the remainder to desultory 
 reading. It was indeed a critical time for his character ; 
 but the germ of nobler qualities lay below ; a genial in- 
 fluence was alone wanting to develop it ; and through the 
 kindness of Providence, as he used emphatically to acknow- 
 ledge, that influence was at hand. Before this period he 
 had become acquainted with John, the eldest son of Mr 
 John Gurney, of Earlham Hall, near Norwich, with whose 
 family his own was distantly connected, and, in the autumn 
 of 1801, he paid his friend a visit at his father's house. 
 
 Mr Gurney had for several years been a widower. His
 
 6 MR GURNET, OF EARLHAM. [^t. 1-16. 
 
 family consisted of eleven children ; three elder daughters, 
 on the eldest of whom the charge of the rest chiefly de- 
 volved, the son whom we have mentioned, a group of four 
 girls nearer Fowell Buxton's age, and three younger boys. 
 He was then in his sixteenth year, and was charmed by the 
 lively and kindly spirit which pervaded the whole party, 
 while he was surprised at finding them all, even the younger 
 portion of the family, zealously occupied in self-education, 
 and full of energy in every pursuit, whether of amusement 
 or of knowledge. They received him as one of themselves, 
 early appreciating his masterly, though still uncultivated 
 niindj while on his side, their cordial and encouraging 
 welcome seemed to draw out all his latent powers. He at 
 once joined with them in reading and study, and from this 
 visit may be dated a remarkable change in the whole tone 
 of his character : he received a stimulus, not merely in the 
 acquisition of knowledge, but in the formation of studious 
 habits and intellectual tastes ; nor could the same influence 
 fail of extending to the refinement of his disposition and 
 manners. 
 
 Earlham itself possessed singular charms for their young 
 and lively party. They are described at the time of his 
 visit as spending the fine autumn afternoons in sketching 
 and reading under the old trees in the park, or in taking ex- 
 cursions, some on foot, some on horseback, into the country 
 round ; wandering homeward towards evening, with their 
 dra-n-ings and the wild flowers they had found. The roomy 
 old hall, also, was well fitted for the cheerful, though simple 
 hospitalities which Mr Gurney delighted to exercise, espe- 
 cially towards the literary society, for which Norwich was 
 at that time distinguished. 
 
 A characteristic anecdote of Mr Gurney has been re- 
 corded. He was a strict preserver of his game, and rxcord- 
 ingly had an intense repugnance to everything bordering on 
 poaching. Upon one occasion, when walking in his park, 
 lie heard a shot fired in a neighbouring wood — he hurried 
 to the spot, and his naturally jilacid temper was consider- 
 ably rnflled on seeing a young officer with a pheasant at his 
 feet, delibei'ati'ly reloading his gun. As the young man, 
 however, r('}>licd to his ratlier warm expressions by a polite 
 apology, Mr Gurney's wrath was somewhat allayed; but he
 
 1786-1802.] LETTER FROM EARLHAM. 7 
 
 could not refrain from asking the intruder what he would 
 do, if he caught a man trespassing on his premises. "I 
 Avould ask him in to luncheon," was the reply. The serenity 
 of this impudence was not to be resisted. Mr Gurney not 
 only invited him to luncheon, but supplied him with dogs 
 and a gamekeeper, and secured him excellent sport for the 
 remainder of the day. 
 
 Mr Gurney belonged to the Society of Friends ; but his 
 family was not brought up with any strict regard to its 
 peculiarities. He put little restraint on their domestic 
 amusements; and music and dancing were among their 
 favourite recreations. The third daughter, afterwards the 
 well-known Mrs Fry, had indeed united herself more closely 
 to the Society of Friends ; but her example in this respect 
 had not as yet been followed by any of her brothers or 
 sisters. 
 
 Such was the family of which Fowell Buxton might be 
 said to have become a member, at this turning point of his 
 life. The following letter was written to his mother during 
 his visit to Earlham : — 
 
 Earlham, Octoher 1801. 
 
 " My dear Mother, — I was very much i^leased with all your last, 
 excepthig that part in which you mentiou the (to me at least) hate- 
 ful subject of St Andrews. * 
 
 " It gives me pain to write, because it will you to read, that my 
 aversion is, ever was, and ever will be invincible; nevertheless, if 
 you command, I will obey. You will exclaim, 'How ungrateful, 
 after all the pleasure he has had.' Pleasure, great pleasure, I cer- 
 tainly have had, but not sufficient to counterbalance the unhappi- 
 ness the pursuance of your plan would occasion me ; but, as I said 
 before, I will obey. 
 
 " If you think fit, I shall return to Cromer on Wednesday. 
 Northrepps is perfectly delightful. I have dined many times with 
 Mr Pym : a letter he has received from his brother in Ireland says, 
 ' i!^othing but speculation, peculation, and paper, exist in this un- 
 happy country.' I am going to Lord Wodehouse's this morning, 
 and to a ball at Mr Rett's at night." 
 
 In December 1801 he returned to Earl's Colne; but his 
 mind never lost the impulse which it had received during 
 jiis stay at Earlham. Many years afterwards he thus refers 
 to this early friendship, which he places first in an enume- 
 ration of the blessings of his life : — 
 
 * His iTiotlier had proposed to send bim to tlic College at St Andrews. 
 
 C
 
 8 EDUCATION IN IRELAND. [^t. 1-16. 
 
 " I know no blessing of a temporal nature (and it is not only 
 temporal) for which I ought to render so many thanks as my con- 
 nexion with the Earlham family. It has given a colour to my life. 
 Its influence was most positive and pregnant with good, at that 
 critical period between school and manhood. They were eager for 
 improvement — I caught the infection. I was resolved to please 
 them, and in the College of Dublin, at a distance from all my 
 friends, and all control, their influence, and the desire to please 
 them, kept me hard at my books, and sweetened the toil they gave. 
 The distinctions I gained at College, (little valuable as distinctions, 
 but valuable, because habits of industry, perseverance, and reflec- 
 tion, were necessary to obtain them,) these boyish distinctions were 
 exclusively the result of the animating passion in my mind, to carry 
 back to them the prizes which they prompted and enabled me to 
 win." 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 1802—1807. 
 
 As there were reasons for expecting that her son would 
 inherit considerable property in Ireland, Mrs Buxton deemed 
 it advisable that he should complete his education at Dub- 
 lin ; and, accordingly, in the winter of 1802 he was placed 
 in the family of Mr Moore of Donnybrook, who prepared 
 jtupils for the University. It was shortly before the 
 Christmas holidays that he took up his abode at Donny- 
 brook, and he then found himself inferior to every one of 
 his companions iu classical acquirements ; but he spent the 
 vacation in such close study, that on the return of the other 
 pupils, he stood as the first among them. 
 
 Late in life he thus recalls this period in a letter to one 
 of his sons, then under the roof of a private tutor : — 
 
 " You are now at that period of life, in which you must make a 
 turn to the right or to the left. You must now give proofs of 
 principle, determination, and strength of mind, — or you must sink 
 into idleness, and acc[uiro the habits and character of a desultory, 
 iiiofloctive young man; and if once you fall to that point, you will 
 lind it no easy matter to rise again. 
 
 " I am sure that a young man may be very much what he pleases. 
 In my own case it was so. I left school, where I had learnt little 
 or nothing, at about the age of fourteen. I spent the next year at 
 homo, learning to hunt and shoot. Then it was, tliat the prospect 
 of going to College oi)ened upon mc, and such thoughts as I have 
 exjirussed in this letter occurred to my mind. I made my resolu- 
 tions, and I acted up to them : 1 gave up all desultory reading — 1
 
 1802-1807.] EMMETT'S REBELLION". 9 
 
 never looked into a novel or a newspaper — I gave up shooting. 
 During the five years I was in Ireland, I had the liberty of going 
 when I pleased to a capital shooting place. I never went but twice. 
 In short, I considered every hour as precious, and I made everything 
 bend to my determination not to be behind any of my companions, 
 — and thus I speedily passed from one species of character to another. 
 I had been a boy fond of pleasure .and idleness, reading only books 
 of unprofitable entertainment — I became speedily a youth of steady 
 habits of application, and irresistible resolution. I soon gained the 
 ground I had lost, and I found those things which were difficult and 
 almost impossible to my idleness, easy enough to my industry ; and 
 much of my happiness and all my prosperity in hfe have resulted 
 from the change I made at your age. It all rests with yourself. If 
 you seriously resolve to be energetic and industrious, depend upon 
 it you will for your whole life have reason to rejoice that you were 
 wise enough to form and to act upon that determination." 
 
 During his stay at this place, the country was disturbed 
 by the breaking out of the " Kilwarden rebellion," instigated 
 by the unfortunate Eobert Emmett. To meet the danger, 
 volunteer corps were hastily organised, one of which Mr 
 Buxton joined as a lieutenant. The current reports of the 
 day are thus sketched by him in his letters to his mother : — 
 
 " Everybody abuses the Lord Lieutenant. He received informa- 
 tion from all parts of the kingdom that the rising was to take place 
 on Saturday night, and all the preparation he made was to send 
 2500 men to take care of his house and family at the Park. The 
 soldiers in Dublin had no ammunition. Colonel Littlehales, Mr 
 Marsden, and every officer of the Castle, were away from their posts ; 
 and for two hours after the rising began, and while the rebels were 
 murdering Lord Kilwarden, Colonel Brown, and aU the soldiers they 
 could catch, nothing was done by government. 
 
 "After the first alarm, however, had subsided, the soldiers col- 
 lected in small parties, and the rebels were soon put to the rout ; 
 before morning, 10,000 pikes were taken, all the prisons in Dublin 
 were filled with rebels, and from 200 to 300 are supposed to have 
 been killed. Isaac and I watched last night at Dounybrook, with 
 our pistols loaded, for it was expected that they would attack tho 
 outskirts. However, they did not come. A great many Lucan 
 people were found dead in Dublin. Every noted rebel was seen 
 going to Dublin on Saturday evening. The gardener and workmen 
 say there were 500 rebels at Mr North's gate that night. Only two 
 mails came into Dublin on Sunday — one was stopped at Lucan and 
 another at Maynooth." 
 
 After remaining a year at Donnybrook, he paid another 
 visit to Earlham. " We are most completely happy here," 
 he writes to his mother ; " everything goes on well, and 
 you need not fear that I am losing my time, for being with
 
 10 DUBLIN UNIVERSITY. [JEi. 16-21. 
 
 the Gurneys makes me ten times more industrious than any- 
 thing else would." 
 
 In October 1803, lie returned to Dublin, and entered 
 Trinity College as a fellow-commoner. He at once com- 
 menced his studies with great vigour, and in his first 
 examination obtained the second place. This success 
 appears to have surpassed his expectations, and he thus 
 writes to his sister: — Feb. 24, 1804, "I suppose you 
 know how the examinations have ended — very much indeed 
 to my satisfaction, and lam now reading away for the next. 
 !My mother is in ecstasies about my being so near getting 
 the premium." And in a letter to his mother he tells her, 
 he is resolutely bent on getting it next time. He suc- 
 ceeded, and this being his first triumph, he was not a little 
 elated ; and he mentions as " an exceeding addition to the 
 jileasure," that he was the first Englishman, as far as he 
 could ascertain, who had gained a premium at the Dublin 
 University. 
 
 Before the autumnal examination, he writes to Mr J. J. 
 Gurncy, who was then reading with a private tutor at 
 Oxford : — 
 
 " College, Dublin, September 9, 1804. 
 
 " Your suppositioDB about my getting a certificate are, I am afraid, 
 very unlikely to be realised. My antagonists are very tremendous. 
 In the first place, there are North and Montgomery. I hardly know 
 which of them I ought to dread the most ; they are both excellent 
 Bcholars, and men of the most unwearied ajiplication : next Wj^branta 
 and Arthur, both of whom I have had the pleasure of beating already. 
 So far for college business; I only wish you were here to beat 
 everybody." 
 
 In a postscript to this veiy letter he mentions with boyish 
 glee his having gained the certificate in question. A close 
 friendship soon afterwards sprang up between Mr Buxton 
 and Mr John Henry North, one of the " tremendous 
 antagonists " to whom he refers ; and who afterwards 
 distinguished himself both at the Irish Bar, and in the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 Whenever Mr Buxton could escape from Dublin, he 
 visited Earlham, and an attachment, which he dated from 
 the first day tliey met, gradually ripened, between him and 
 Hannah, fiilh daughter of Mr Curney; till in March 1805, 
 they were engaged to be married.
 
 1802-3807.] HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 11 
 
 But wlaile in tliis direction a bright prospect opened 
 before him, in another, the clouds appeared to be gathering 
 about his path. Other claimants had come forward to 
 contest his right tO the Irish property ; his mother had 
 undertaken an expensive lawsuit regarding it, and her 
 hopes of success were already growing dim. At the same 
 time the family property had been materially diminished, 
 by some unsuccessful speculations in which she had engaged. 
 
 Her son's letters, however, (addressed for the most part 
 to Earlham,) bear little trace of anxiety : — 
 
 "April 1805. 
 
 " The examinations are over, but, alas, I cannot describe the 
 disasters that have befallen me. Think how disagreeable a circum- 
 stance it must be to me to have all my hopes disappointed, to lose 
 the certificate, to have my gold medal stopped, and, what is worse, 
 to know that my Earlham visit, as it was the cause of my idleness, 
 was the cause of my disgrace. Think of all this, and fetch a very, 
 very deep sigh, — and look very grave, and then think how happy I 
 must be to have to tell tou, that my utmost examinationary hopes 
 are realised, — ^that I have the certificate and ' Valde bene in omnibus,' 
 and, what is better, that I can ascribe my success to nothing but my 
 Earlham visit! .... I am sure that, if I had not thought that I 
 was partly working for you, I never should have been able to read 
 so much during this month. The examiner told five of my opponents 
 that he was sorry he had not a premium for each of them. I was 
 not ' cut up ' (as the College phrase is) during the whole examina- 
 tion, and if I have been the trumpeter of my own praise a little too 
 much, you must remember that one slight word of approbation 
 from Earlham would be more grateful to me, than the loudest 
 applause of the whole world besides." 
 
 " College, Dublin, Septemler 29, 1805, 
 " My mind has lately been very much occupied with the consi- 
 deration of the lawfulness of taking oaths, because my College pur- 
 suits would lose a great deal of their stimulus, if I thought I should 
 not go to the Bar, for the information which I may acquire here 
 would be comparatively of little use to any one but a lawyer. To 
 remove or strengthen my doubts, I have been reading ' Paley's Phi- 
 losophy,' and, indeed, he has almost convinced me that taking oaths 
 is not the kind of swearing that is prohibited. I have endeavoured 
 to free my mind from prejudice on one side, and interest on the 
 other; and I think that if I felt a bias at all, it was against swear- 
 ing, which arose from the fear of being actuated by my wishes, ra- 
 ther than by reason." 
 
 In October 1805, he and his friend North took their seats 
 together in the " Historical Society." In one of his letters, 
 he speaks of the dread with which he looked forward to
 
 12 HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [JEi. 16-21. 
 
 " sucli a tremendous thing " as addressing so large an audi- 
 ence. His first speech, however, met vnth. unexpected suc- 
 cess. One of his fellow-collegians still remembers " its 
 producing quite a sensation among tlae undergraduates;" 
 and he himself thus writes to Earlham ; — 
 
 " November 1805. 
 " I did not answer your letter before, because I wished to state 
 the result of my speech, which is beyond my utmost expectations. 
 Five persons spoke besides myself : ninety -two members gave Re- 
 turns, of which eighty -five were for me. A law exists in the Society, 
 that if any one should get eighty Returns for a speech, he is to re- 
 ceive the ' remarhahle thanks.' There has never been an opportunity 
 of putting this law in force till now." 
 
 "Wednesday, December 25, 1805. 
 
 " I made a speech last night iu the Historical Society, and, con- 
 trary to my former determination, I intend to speak once more. I 
 am induced to do this by getting a great many more Returns than 
 I had any reason to expect. 
 
 " I have, I fear, very little chance of getting the premium ; how- 
 ever, if I do not, I am perfectly satisfied with the result of my studies 
 this term. I have taken very little sleep, amusement, or exercise 
 lately, the consequence of which is, that I have been very unwell." 
 
 His hopes were more than realised ; not only did he again 
 carry off the preminm, but the silver medal of the Historical 
 Society was awarded him, of which he subsequently gained 
 the other three prizes. At College, indeed, nothing but 
 good fortune attended him. His exertions were uniformly 
 crowned with success ; his mind found scope for its un- 
 ceasing activity ; his circle of friends was choice, yet large ; 
 and a zest was added to all enjoyments, by the bright pro- 
 spect afforded him at Earlham. The gradual overcasting 
 of his hopes of wealth but little affected his spirits. He 
 says in a letter to a friend : — 
 
 " I am very eorry to hear of your unhappinesses ; I wish I could 
 do anything to alleviate them. I think I might very well spare hap- 
 piness enough for a moderate person, and still have enough left for 
 myself." 
 
 He some years after referred to his success in College as 
 having " produced this amount of self-confidence." 
 
 " I was, and have always been, conscious that though others had 
 great talents, niiiio woro moderate; that what I wanted in ability, 
 1 must iaak(! uj) by perseverance; in short, that I must work hard 
 to win, but \sithal a Bouae that by working hard, I could win. Thia
 
 1802-1807.] ESCAPE FROM SHIPWRECK. 13 
 
 conviction that I could do nothing without labour, but that I coulil 
 do anything, or almost anything, which others did, by dint of vigor- 
 ous application ; this, coupled with a resolved mind, a kind of plod- 
 ding, dogged determination, over which difficulties had little influ- 
 ence, and with considerable industry and perseverance ; these have 
 been the talents committed to my trust." 
 
 From the dissipation then too prevalent in the University 
 he was happily preserved, partly by his close and incessant 
 occupation, partly by his Earlham connexion, and partly by 
 his previous education ; for although his letters up to this 
 period contain no direct mention of religion, yet the Chris- 
 tian principles which his mother had mstilled into his mind 
 retained a certain influence ; while his natural firmness of 
 character enabled him to disregard the taunts to which he 
 was exposed. He found more difficulty in sacrificing to his 
 academical pursuits the strong inclination for field sports, 
 which had been cherished at Earl's Colne, and which accom- 
 panied him through life. In a letter to Earlham, dated 
 May 1806, he says, — 
 
 " One of the various advantages I have derived from our con- 
 nexion, is the check it has been to my sporting inclinations. I am 
 thoroughly convinced that, had my mind received another bent, had 
 my pursuits been directed towards sporting, its charms would have 
 been irresistible. A life dedicated to amusement must be most un- 
 satisfactory I think you need be under no apprehension in 
 
 regard to having too much influence over me : as to my being 
 
 member for Weymouth, it is a totally chimerical idea, for were I 
 ever so willing, it is quite impracticable, so you may lay aside all 
 fears of my becoming a great man." 
 
 His letters to his mother at this period are chiefly con- 
 fined to matters of business ; one trait in them is, however, 
 too characteristic to be passed over without notice. Nearly 
 all of them conclude with inquiries and directions about his 
 horses, in which he always took so lively an interest, that it 
 almost might be called personal frioidship. "I mean," he 
 tells his mother, " to visit Wejonouth before returning to 
 Ireland, to see how my horses and relations do." He was, 
 however, obliged to hasten his return to DubUn, and on his 
 way thither he had a remarkable escape, the particulars of 
 which he thus describes : — 
 
 "In the year 1806, I was travelling with the Earlham party in 
 Scotland. I left them to return to the College of Dublin. In con- 
 sequence of Bome conversation about the Parkgate vessels, with my
 
 14 STUDY OF THE BIBLE. [^t. 16-21. 
 
 present wife, then Hannah Gumey, she extracted from me a promise 
 that I would never go by Parkgate. I was exceedingly impatient 
 to be at Dublin, in order to prepare for my examination : when I 
 reached Chester, the captain of the Parlcgate packet came to me, 
 and invited me to go with him. The wind was fair ; the vessel was 
 to sail in a few hours ; he was sure I should be in Dublin early the 
 next morning, whereas a place in the Holyhead mail was doubtful, 
 and at best I must lose the next day by travelling through Wales. 
 My pi'omise was a bitter mortification to me, but I could not dis- 
 pense with it. I drank tea, and played at cards with a very large 
 party. About eight or nine o'clock they all went away on board 
 the vessel, and of the 119 persons who embarked as passengers, 118 
 were drowned before midnight." 
 
 It was during this tour in Scotland tliat liis attention 
 appears to liave been drawn, with increased earnestness, to 
 the subject of religion. When at Perth, he purchased a 
 large Bible, with the resolution, which he steadfastly kept, 
 of perusing a portion of it every day ; and he mentions in 
 a letter, dated September 10, 1806, that a change had been 
 worked in his mind with respect to reading the Holy Scrip- 
 tures. " Formerly," he says, " I read generally rather as a 
 duty than as a pleasure, but now I read them with great 
 interest, and, I may say, happiness. I never before felt so 
 assured that the only means of being happy, is from seek- 
 ing the assistance of a superior Being, or so inclined to en- 
 deavour to submit myself to the direction of principle." 
 
 The College examination was now again approaching, and 
 he was not so well prepared as usual, having given, as he 
 feared, too much time to Optics, of which science he speaks 
 as " the most delightful and captivating of studies." After 
 the examination was over, he writes to the party at Earl- 
 ham : — 
 
 " I never had such a contest. The examiner could not decide in 
 the Ifall, so we were obliged to have two hours more this morning; 
 
 however, I can congratulate you once more I venerate Optica 
 
 for what they have done for mo in this examination." 
 
 In the course of this examination, he gave an answer to 
 one of the vivd voce questions, which the examiner thought 
 incorrect, and lie passed on to the next man ; but to the 
 astonishment of the other undergraduates, Buxton rose from 
 his scat and said, " I beg your pardon, sir, but I am con- 
 vinced my answer was correct." The examiner, after some 
 demur, consented to refer to a book of authority on the sub-
 
 1802-1807.] SUCCESS AT COLLEGE. 15 
 
 ject, and it proved tliat Buxton's answer was tlie one given 
 in the latest edition of the work. 
 
 " November 1806. 
 " Every day brings us new accounts of disturbances in the remote 
 parts of the country ; I am almost inclined to fear there will be a 
 rebellion. I have been thinking a great deal lately of what I should 
 do in case the corps were again established in College. There is to 
 me no question so dubious or perplexing, as whether resistance 
 against danger from an enemy is allowable : however, if I can trust 
 my own determination, I shall not be at all swayed by the example 
 of others, or by the disgrace which would attend a refusal to enlist." 
 
 A day or two later, he continues : — 
 
 " I was extremely tired at the Historical Society on Wednesday 
 night. I was made President, and you cannot imagine the labour 
 of keeping a hundred unruly and violent men orderly and obedient. 
 The all-engrossing subject here at present is the prospect of a 
 rebellion, if I may say the prospect when I think there is the reality. 
 Every day we hear of fresh murders ; and the Bishop of Elphin, 
 who is of the Law family, declared openly in the Castle-yard, that 
 in the five and twenty years he had resided here, the people in his 
 diocese were never in so desperate a state of rebellion." 
 
 On his return to England for a short holiday, he says : — 
 
 "London, Jcmuary 23, 1807. 
 " It is a very great pleasure to me that I can tell you some news, 
 ■which I think will delight you. In the first place, I have arrived 
 here safe and sound. In the second, I have for the twelfth time 
 secured the premium, and Valde bene in omnibus." 
 
 On the 14th of April in the same year he received his 
 thirteenth premium, and also the highest honour of the 
 University, — the Gold Medal. With these distinctions, 
 and the four silver medals from the Historical Society, he 
 prepared to return to England. At this juncture a circum- 
 stance occurred which might have turned the whole current 
 of his hfe. A proposal was made to him by the electors to 
 come forward as candidate for the representation of the 
 University, and good grounds were given him to expect a 
 triumphant return. No higher token of esteem than this 
 could have been offered to one without wealth or Irish 
 connexion, and without the smallest claim upon the con- 
 sideration of the University, except what his personal and 
 academical character afforded. Such an offer it was not 
 easy to reject, and he was, as he says at the time, " ex- 
 tremely agitated and pleased by it." He weighed the
 
 16 HIS MARRIAGE. [JEt. 16-21. 
 
 pleasure, the distinction, the influence promised by the 
 political career, thus unexpectedly opened before him ; and 
 he set against these considerations the duties which his 
 approaching marriage would bring upon him. Prudence 
 ]:>revailed, and he declined the proposal. His friend Mr 
 North writes to him : — 
 
 " I thiiik all hearts would have been in your favour, if you had 
 made your appearance — and still they cannot convince themselves 
 that you intend to go boldly through with your resolution — ' Come 
 then, my guide, my genius, come along ! ' You were mistaken in 
 thinking fortune (in one sense) a necessary qualification; there is 
 an honourable exception for the Universities." 
 
 Mr Buxton, however, had come to a deliberate decision, 
 and it was not to be shaken. He reached England at the 
 end of April, and in the following month his marriage took 
 place. 
 
 In one of his papers he thus alludes to the closing cir- 
 cumstances of his academical career : — 
 
 " On May 13, 1807, I obtained the object of my long attachment 
 ■ — having refused, in consequence of the prospect of this marriage, a 
 most honourable token of the esteem of the University of Dublin. 
 The prospect was indeed flattering to youthful ambition, — to become 
 i member of Parliament, and my constituents men of thought and 
 education and honour and principle, — my companions, my competi- 
 tors, — those who had known me, and observed me for years. 
 
 " I feel now a pride in recollecting that it was from these men I 
 received this mark of approbation, — from men, with whom I had 
 no family alliance, not even the natural connexion of compatriotism, 
 and without high birth or splendid fortune or numerous connexions 
 to recommend me. I suspended my determination for one day, 
 beset by my friends, who were astonished at the appearance of a 
 doubt, and having closely considered all points, I determined to de- 
 cline the intended honour ; and from that day to this, thanks to 
 God, I have never lamented the determination." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1807-1812. 
 
 The first few months of Mr Buxton's married life were 
 passed at a small cottage close to his grandmother's seat at 
 I3ellfioI(l, and in the neighbourhood of his mother, who had 
 contracted a second marriage with EJnmud Hcnniiig, Esq.,
 
 1807-1812.] ENTERS TRUMAN'S BREWERY. 17 
 
 of Weymoutli, and had left Essex to reside at the hatter 
 place. 
 
 His expectations of wealth had been disappointed, and 
 he found that his fortunes must depend upon his own 
 exertions. After deliberate consideration, he relinquished 
 the idea of following the profession of the law, and entered 
 into negotiations in different quarters, with a view to estab- 
 lishing himself in business. For a whUe these were un- 
 successful, and during this time he suffered severely from 
 the pain of present inaction, and the obscurity that rested 
 on the future. In after-life, when referring to this period 
 he said, " I longed for any employment that would produce 
 me a hundred a-year, if I had to work twelve hours a-day 
 for it." Nearly a year passed away before his anxieties 
 were brought to a conclusion. The winter was spent at 
 Earlham, where his first child was born. Soon afterwards, 
 in a letter to his wife from London, he says, " I slept at 
 Brick Lane ; my uncles Sampson and Osgood Hanbury 
 were there, and revived my old feelings of good nephewship, 
 they treated me so kindly. This morning I met Mr Ran- 
 dall and your father. I think that I shall become a Black- 
 well Hall factor." 
 
 This intention was prevented by an unexpected turn in 
 his fortunes, resulting from his friendly interview with his 
 uncles. Within a few days IMr Sampson Hanbury of 
 Truman's Brewery in Spitalfields, offered him a situation in 
 that establishment, with a prospect of becoming a partner 
 after three years' probation. He joyfully acceded to the 
 proposal, and entered with great ardour upon his new sphere 
 of action. He writes, July 1808, to his mother, "I was 
 up this morning at four, and do not expect to finish my 
 day's work before twelve to-night — my excuse for silence. 
 I have not neglected your business." At the close of the 
 year he succeeded Mr Hanbury in the occupation of a 
 house connected with the brewery, in which he contmued 
 to reside for several years. 
 
 During these years his correspondence was not extensive. 
 Among the few letters which have been preserved is the 
 following, addressed to his vdfe, who had accompanied one 
 of her brothers to the Isle of Wight. Mr Buxton had 
 arranged to join them there; but on arriving at South-
 
 18 NETLEY ABBEY. [^t. 21-2(3. 
 
 anipton, lie found that all communication with, the island 
 was interdicted on account of the secret expedition then 
 about to sail from Cowes, as it afterwards proved, to 
 Walcheren. 
 
 " Southampton, June 15, 1809. 
 " Now that I have finished my coffee, I thiuk I cannot employ 
 my time more profitably or more pleasantly than in sending a few 
 lines to you. I am afraid the embargo has been a great trouble to 
 you. It was so to me when I first arrived, as the idea of spending 
 some time with your party was particularly pleasant; however, 
 either by the aid of ' divine philosophy,' or from finding that the 
 misfortime was irremediable, in a short time I was reconciled to my 
 fate, and began to consider how best to enjoy what was within my 
 reach. As I could not have the living companions that I most 
 wished for, I went to a bookseller's shop to endeavour to find some 
 agreeable dead ones, and having made choice of ' Tristram Shandy ' 
 and a ' Patriot King,' I proceeded in their honourable company to 
 the water side, took a boat, and went off to Netley Abbey. I 
 thoroughly enjoyed this excursion. First I went all over the interior, 
 and then walked leisurely round it at some distance, stopping and 
 reading at every scene that I particularly liked. Then I went vip 
 into the wood, to a spot which seems to have been formed for a 
 dining-room. While the boatman was at dinner, I went over into 
 the next field to a higher ground. I hope this did not escape you. 
 The four ivy-covered broken towers just below, a party dining on 
 the grass plat, the intermediate distance of trees, and the sea behind, 
 made it, I think, the finest view I ever saw. I only hope you have 
 sketched it; and, next to it, I should wish for a di-awing of the 
 nearest window from the inside — I mean the one that is tolerably 
 perfect, with a great deal of ivy over the middle pillar. I had a 
 ])leasant row home, and have since been thinking about your party 
 with the greatest pleasure ; and, amongst other thoughts connected 
 with you, it has forcibly struck me how beneficial it is sometimes 
 to be amongst strangers, it gives such a taste and a relish for the 
 Bociety of those one loves." 
 
 TO MRS HENNINQ. 
 
 " DecemhtvZ, 1809. 
 
 " My dkar Mother, — I am very much obliged to you for your 
 letter, which furnished me with several useful hints, though not 
 upon the particular subject on which I wanted information. 
 
 " As to the general propriety and duty of introducing Christianity 
 into India, there cannot be, I imagine, a question ; but is this the 
 proper season ? is not our empire in India too unstable to authorise 
 such an experiment ? In short, I wished to determine its political 
 propriety, to examine it with the eye of a statesman, not of a Chris- 
 tian, and to inquire, not what Fcnelon, but what Machiavcl would 
 have said of it. The result wliich I have come to is, that it would 
 be hir/Jily f.rprdievt, and perhaps the only measure which could reiu- 
 Btate our declining power in the East.
 
 1807-1812.] THE ACADEMICS. 19 
 
 " Your letter shews powers of which I may make eminent use, 
 but observe, I must qualify this praise by saying that it wanted 
 method throughout the whole, and greater pains bestowed upon 
 the parts. 
 
 " The Poor Laws is the next question I shall consider, and I 
 expect great assistance from you. The only restrictions that I would 
 suggest are a parsimoniousness of Scripture quotations, and a care 
 against negligence in the dress of the parts, for, after all, appearance 
 and style are more than matter : a diamond is but a dirty pebble 
 till it is polished. Virgil and his translator Trap only differed as to 
 dress. The images, the incidents, the characters are the same in 
 both, yet the one is the best poem in the Latin language, and the 
 other perhaps the worst in the English." 
 
 Although, during his term of probation at the Brewery 
 he was closely occupied in maldng himself master of his 
 new vocation, he yet found time for the study of English 
 literature, and especially of political economy. " My 
 maxims are," he writes, " never to begin a book without 
 finishing it ; never to consider it finished till I know it ; 
 and to study with a whole mind." He admitted, in after- 
 life, that even at this early period he had indulged a distant 
 idea of entering Parliament ; and, in consequence of this, 
 he continued to i^ractise the art of pubUc speaking in a 
 debating club of which he was a member. 
 
 "I must tell you," he writes to Mr North, December 1810, " of a 
 signal reformation which has taken place. I have become again a 
 hard reader, and of sterling books. In spite of your marriage cause, 
 I hold myself your equal in Blackstone and in Montesquieu, and 
 your superior in Bacon, parts of whom I have read with Mallettian 
 avidity. I have not been much at ' The Academics,' but it goes on 
 famously; your memory is held in the highest estimation — even 
 our oracle Twiss speaks well of you. Grant and Bowdler are, I fear, 
 gone from us." 
 
 His former schoolfellow, Mr Horace Twiss, thus describes 
 meeting him at this time : — 
 
 " We had been at school together at the celebrated Dr Burney's, 
 of Greenwich, and were very mtimate. 
 
 " Buxton was then, as in after-life, extraordinarily tall, and was 
 called by his playfellows ' Elephant Buxton.' He was at that time, 
 as afterwards, like the animal he was called from, of a kind and 
 gentle nature ; but he did not then exhibit any symptoms of the 
 elephantine talent he afterwards evinced. 
 
 " I myself very often did his Latin lessons for him ; and, as he 
 was somewhat older and much bigger than I was, I found him, in 
 many respects, a valuable ally. When I wag about twenty, I be- 
 came a member of ' The Academics,' a society in London (like the
 
 20 WILLIAM ALLEN. [JEt. 21-26, 
 
 ' Historical ' in Duljlin, and the ' Speculative ' in Edinburgh), where 
 the topics of the day were debated. There I heard, on my first or 
 second evening of attendance, a speech of great ability, from a man 
 of great stature; and I should have been assured it was my old 
 schoolfellow I saw before me, but that I could not suppose it possible 
 BO dull a boy could have become so clever a man. He it was, how- 
 ever ; and I renewed my friendly intercourse with him, both at the 
 society and in private. 
 
 " Our chums were poor North, afterwards distinguished in Parlia- 
 ment and at the Irish Bar, who died at between forty and fifty ; and 
 Henry, the younger son of the great Grattan. AVe afterwards sat 
 altogether in the House of Commons, with some others of our fellow- 
 Academics, the two Grants and Spring Rice. Homer had been an 
 Academic, but he was before our time. Of late years, Buxton was 
 chiefly resident in Norfolk, but our mutual good-will continued to 
 the last." 
 
 From childliood, the duty of active benevolence liad been 
 impressed on him by his mother, who used to set before 
 him the idea of taking up some great cause by which he 
 might promote the happiness of man. On beginning to 
 live in London he at once sought opportunities of useful- 
 ness, and in this pursuit he received great assistance from 
 an acquaintance, which ripened into friendship, with the 
 Quaker philosopher and philanthropist, William Allen. 
 This good man had long been engaged upon objects of 
 enlightened benevolence, and by him Mr Buxton was from 
 time to time initiated into some of those questions, to wliich 
 his after-life was devoted. 
 
 One of the most important of these had already dawned 
 upon him. He writes to Mrs Buxton, December 1808 : — 
 
 " I have one reason for wishing to remain in town, which is, that 
 I am going to become a member of a small society, now instituting, 
 for the purpose of calling the public mind to the bad effects and 
 inefficiency of capital punishments." 
 
 And at a subsequent period, he says — 
 
 "From the time of my connexion with the Brewery in 1808 to 
 1816, I took a part in all the charitable objects of that distressed 
 district, more especially those connected with education, the Bible 
 Society, and the deep sufferings of the weavers." , 
 
 All these labours he shared with his brother-in-law, Mr 
 Samuel Iloarc, of IIami).stead, between whom and himself 
 there existed tlicn, and througli life, a friendship and 
 fellowship, far beyond what usually results from such a 
 connexion. Nor was his friendship with his sister-in-law,
 
 1807-1812.] CORRESPONDENCE. 21 
 
 Mrs Fry, less valuable to him. He felt (what indeed was 
 felt by every human being who saw much of her) the most 
 profound love and reverence for her exalted character. It 
 was partly from his pleasure in hearing her preach that he 
 was, throughout life, a very frequent visitant at Quaker 
 meetings. But also, there never was any one who relished 
 more keenly what Shakspeare calls, " The sessions of sweet 
 silent thought," whether in the stUlness of a Friend's 
 meeting-house, or in the fields. To wander and meditate 
 in the deep solitude of a pine wood, was, perhaps, the 
 thing in the world that he most thoroughly enjoyed. 
 
 TO MRS BUXTON. 
 
 " September 23, 1810. 
 " I have passed a very quiet and industrious week, up early, 
 breakfast at eight o'clock, dinner near six, and the evenings to my- 
 self, which have been well employed over my favourite Blackstone. 
 I read him till near ten last night, and then Jeremy Taylor till past 
 eleven, and could hardly give him up, he was so very entertaining a 
 
 companion This morning I went to Gracechurch Street 
 
 meeting, I was rather late, which made me feel hurried, and pre- 
 vented my having sufficient time to myself before meeting ; how- 
 ever, I had made a little use of my friend Jeremy at breakfast, and 
 this and last night's readings gave me occupation for my thoughts. 
 I saw William Allen, who wants me to call upon him to-morrow, as 
 he says he has foimd a place for the boys' school as suitable as if we 
 were to buUd one. This, I know, will please you, but will alarm 
 you also, lest we should forget the girls." 
 
 It has been mentioned that Mr Buxton was the eldest of 
 three sons. Edward North, the third brother, a wayward 
 lad, had been sent to sea as a midshipman in an East India- 
 man, commanded by his relative Captain Dumbleton ; but 
 in his first voyage he left his ship and entered the King's 
 service. From that time his family had received no tidings 
 of him, and by degrees they became impressed with the 
 painful conviction that he had died at sea. The suspense 
 of five years was at last brought to an end, by the arrival 
 of a letter to Mr Buxton from one of his brother's ship- 
 mates, announcing that he had arrived in a dying state at 
 Gosport, and was earnestly desirous to see some of his 
 relations. He had been attacked by dysentery while on 
 board ship at Bombay ; and, feeling that his days were 
 numbered, he became intensely anxious to reach home once 
 more. He hastened to England in the first ship by which
 
 22 DEATH OF EDWARD BUXTON. [^t. 21-26. 
 
 lie could obtain a passage ; and on his arrival at Gosport, 
 was carried to Haslar Hospital, whence he despatched a 
 letter to his mother. This letter was unfortunately delayed, 
 in consequence of its having been directed to the house at 
 Earl's Colne, which had been parted with some years before, 
 and the unhappy youth — he was only nineteen — in the 
 morbid state of his feelings, became so strongly impressed 
 by a sense of his neglect in never having communicated 
 with his friends, that he felt persuaded they would now 
 refuse to acknowledge him. A second letter, in which he 
 besought that some one of the family would consent to 
 visit him on his deathbed, reached Mr Buxton, and in two 
 hours he and his brother Charles were on the road to Gos- 
 port, which they reached on the following morning. With 
 mingled emotions of hope and fear they set out for the 
 Hospital. Having been directed to a large ward full of 
 the sick and dying, they walked through the room without 
 being able to discover the object of their search ; till at 
 length they were struck by the earnestness with which an 
 emaciated youth upon one of the sickbeds was gazing at 
 them. On their approaching his bedside, although he 
 could scarcely articulate a word, his face was lit up with 
 an expression of delight that sufficiently shewed that he 
 recognised them : but it was not for some moments that 
 they could trace in his haggard features the lineaments of 
 their long-lost brother. 
 
 A few days afterwards Mr Buxton writes : — ■ 
 
 "GosroRT, Aurjust 10, 1811. 
 " It is pleasant to be with Edward, he seems so hajipy in the idea 
 of having his friends about him. This morning 1 thought him 
 strong enough to hear part of a chapter in St Luke on prayer, and 
 the 20th Psahn. Charles then went away, and I mentioned to him 
 how apphcable some of the passages were to his state ; he said, he 
 felt them so, and that he had been very unfortunate in having been 
 on board ship where religion is so neglected ; that he had procured 
 a Bible, and one of his friends had sometimes read to him, but not 
 HO often as ho wished. That ho had hoped and prayed that he 
 might reach England, more that he might confess his sins to me 
 than for any other reason ; tliat, supposing at length that there was 
 iiext to no chance of this, he had dictated a letter to me upon the 
 Bubject, which is now in his box. When I told him, that as his 
 ilhiesa had brought Iiim into such a frame of mind, it was impossible 
 for mo to regret it, let the event be what it would, he said he con- 
 Bidorcd it as a mercy now, but that nobody could tuU what his
 
 1807-1812.] EXERTIONS IN THE BREWERY, 23 
 
 Bufferings had been. I then entered into a kind of short history of 
 what I considered to be inculcated in the Testament, ' that Christ 
 came to call sinners to repentance.' He felt consolation from this; 
 but again said, that he had been indeed a sinner. I then told him 
 that I hoped he did not ever omit to pray for assistance, and I 
 added that Charles and I had joined in prayer for him last night. 
 He seemed so much affected by this, that I did not think it right to 
 press the conversation further. Does not all this furnish a striking 
 jjroof how our sorrows may be converted into joys ? I can look 
 upon his illness in no other light than as a most merciful dispensa- 
 tion. It is most affectingly dehghtful to see his lowliness of mind, 
 and his gratitude to all of us. I cannot help thinking that his 
 mind is more changed than his body." 
 
 He died a few days afterwards. 
 
 In 1811 Mr Buxton Avas admitted as a partner in the 
 Brewery ; and during the ensuing seven years he was 
 almost exclusively devoted to his business. Soon after his 
 admission, his senior partners, struck by his energy and 
 force of mind, placed in his hands the difficult and respon- 
 sible task of remodelling their whole system of management. 
 It would be superflu.ous to enter into the details of his pro- 
 ceedings, though, perhaps, he never displayed greater vigour 
 and firmness than in carrying through this undertaking. 
 For two or three years he was occupied from morning till 
 night, in prosecuting, step by step, his plans of reform : a 
 single example may indicate with what spirit he grappled 
 with the difficulties that beset him on all sides. 
 
 One of the principal clerks was an honest man, and a 
 valuable servant ; but he was wedded to the old system, 
 and viewed with great antipathy the young partner's pro- 
 posed innovations. At length, on one occasion, he went so 
 far as to thwart Mr Buxton's plans. The latter took no 
 notice of this at the time, except desiring him to attend in 
 the counting-house at six o'clock the next morning. Mr 
 Buxton met him there at the appointed hour ; and, without 
 any expostulation, or a single angry word, desired him to 
 produce his books, as he meant for the future to undertake 
 the charge of them himself, in addition to his other duties. 
 Amazed at this unexpected decision, the clerk yielded en- 
 tkely ; he promised complete submission for the future ; he 
 made his wife intercede for him ; and Mr Buxton, who 
 valued his character and services, was induced to restore 
 him to his place. They afterwards became very good 
 
 D
 
 24 EXERTIONS IN THE BREWERY, [^t. 21-26. 
 
 friends, and the salutary effect of the changes introduced 
 by Mr Buxton was at length admitted by his leading 
 opponent ; nor, except in one instance, did he ever contend 
 against them again. On that occasion ^Ir Buxton merely 
 sent him a message " that he had better meet him in the 
 countmg-house, at six o'clock the next morning," — and the 
 book-keeper's opposition was heard of no more. 
 
 We may add, that among other points wanting reform, 
 he found that the men employed were in many instances 
 wholly uneducated. To the remedy of this evil, he took a 
 more direct road than exhortation or advice. He called 
 them together, and simply said to them : " This day six 
 weeks I shall discharge every man who cannot read and 
 write." He provided them a schoolmaster, and means of 
 learning, and on the appointed day held an examination. 
 Such had been the earnestness to learn that not one man 
 was dismissed. 
 
 He was also very careful to prevent any work from being 
 done in the Brewery on the Sunday, and the strict observ- 
 ance of it which he introduced has been thoroughly main- 
 tained up to the present time. 
 
 The success which crowned his exertions in business 
 materially paved his way to public life. He was gradually 
 relieved from the necessity of attending, in person, to the 
 details of its management, although he continued through- 
 out his life to take a part in the general superintendence of 
 the concern. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1812—1816. 
 
 Mr Buxton was, of course, closely bound to his London 
 avocations ; but almost every autumn he spent some weeks 
 at l"]ar]]i;un, enjoying the recreation of shooting, in company 
 with Mr Samuel Hoare. It was during one of these visits, 
 tliat lie first addressed a public meeting. His brother-in- 
 law, Mr Joseph John Curney, in September 1812, insisted 
 lliat for once he should leave his sport, and give his aid in 
 the second meeting of the Norfolk Bible Society.
 
 1S12-1816.] THE REV. JOSIAH PRATT. 25 
 
 His speech on that occasion is thus alluded to by Mr J, 
 J. Gurney : — 
 
 " There are many who can still remember the remarkable effect 
 produced in one of the earliest public meetings of the Norfolk Bible 
 Society, more than thirty years ago, by one of his speeches, dis- 
 tinguished for its acuteness and good sense, as well as for the Chi-is- 
 tian temper in which it was delivered. His commanding person, 
 his benevolent and highly intellectual expression of countenance, 
 his full-toned voice, together with his manly yet playful eloquence, 
 electrified the assembly, and many were those on that day who re- 
 joiced that so noble and just a cause had obtained so strenuous and 
 able an advocate." 
 
 Some indications have been already given of the increasing 
 power of religious principle in Mr Buxton's mind ; but he 
 had not yet been fully brought under its influence, nor had 
 he acquired clear views as to some of the fundamental 
 truths of Christianity, In 1811, he mentions that during 
 a visit to Lynn, he had met his friends the Eev, Edward 
 Edwards, and the Eev. Robert Hankinson, who recom- 
 mended him to attend the ministry of the Rev. Josiah 
 Pratt, in Wheeler Street Chapel, Spitalfields : and to the 
 preaching of that excellent clergyman he attributed, with 
 the liveliest gratitude, his first real acquaintance \vith the 
 doctrines of Christianity. He himself says — " It was much 
 and of vast moment that I there learned from Mr Pratt." 
 — He wrote to Mr Pratt thirty years afterwards, " "What- 
 ever I have done in my life for Afiica, the seeds of it were 
 sown in my heart, in Wheeler Street Chapel. 
 
 With him, indeed, there was no sudden change, as in 
 many men of well-kno^\ai piety. Both nature and educa- 
 tion had tended to prepare him for religion. His mind, 
 ever disposed (in Bacon's words) to " prefer things of 
 substance, before things of show " — with a strong love for 
 truth, and susceptible of deep feeling — afforded, perhaps, a 
 fit soil for the reception of those truths, which at length 
 struck deej) root there. On the other hand, he regarded 
 his tendency to become wholly absorbed in the work before 
 him as a great bar to his progress in higher things. Thus 
 he writes to one of his relatives at Earlham : — 
 
 "Hampstead, 3 f arch 21, 1812. 
 " I bad determined, before I received your last letter, to thank 
 yon, dear C— — , myself, for much pleasure, and I think a little
 
 26 GREAT REGARD TO RELIGION, [^t. 26-30. 
 
 profit (mucli less than it ought to have been), in observing the pro- 
 gress of your mind. It does indeed give me real joy to see you and 
 others of your family striving in your race with such full purpose of 
 heart ; and the further I feel left behind — the more I feel engaged 
 in other pursuits — so much the more I admire and love the ex- 
 cellence, which I hardly endeavour to reach : and so much the more 
 I perceive the infinite superiority of your objects over mine. 
 
 " When I contrast your pursuits with my pursuits, and your life 
 with my life, I always feel the comparison a wholesome and a 
 humiliating lesson, and it makes me see the ends for which I labour 
 in their proper light ; and my heart is ready to confess, that ' Thou 
 hast chosen the good part, which shall not be taken from thee.' 
 How is it then, with this contrast constantly staring me in the face 
 whenever I think seriously, that it has no eSect, or next to none, ou 
 my practice ? I see the excellence of the walk you have chosen, 
 and the madness of dedicating myself to anything but to the pre- 
 paration of that journey which I must so shortly take. I know, 
 that if success shall crown all my projects, I shall gain that which 
 ■will never satisfy me, ' that which is not bread.' I know the poverty 
 of our most darling schemes — the meanness of our most delicious 
 prospects — the transitoriness of our most durable possessions — when 
 weighed against that fulness of joy and eternity of bliss which are 
 the reward of those who seek them aright. All this I see with the 
 utmost certainty — that two and two make four is not clearer ; how 
 is it, then, that with these speculative opinions, my practical ones 
 are so entirely difi'erent? I am irritable about trifles, eager after 
 pleasures, and anxious about business : various objects of this kind 
 engross my attention at all times ; they pursue me even to Meeting 
 and to Church, and seem to grudge the few moments which are 
 devoted to higher considerations, and strive to bring back to the 
 temple of the Lord the sellers, and the buyers, and the money- 
 changers. My reason tells me, that these things are utterly indif- 
 ferent ; but my practice says, that they only are worthy of thought 
 and attention. My practice says, ' Thou art increased with goods, 
 and hast need of nothing ; ' but my reason teaches me, ' Thou art 
 wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.' 
 
 . ..." I have in this letter divulged the train of thinking which 
 
 is constantly recurring to my mind If I have said too much 
 
 in any part of it, I am sure I do not go beyond the truth in saying, 
 that hardly anything comes so near my heart as my lovo for my 
 sweet sisters." 
 
 In the commencement of the year 1813 he was visited 
 by an iUness which brought him to the brink of the grave, 
 llow momentou.s an era he felt this to have been, we may 
 learn from the following i)apcr, written after his recovery : — 
 
 "Fchruary 7, 1813. 
 "After 80 severe an illness as that with which I have lately been 
 visited, it may bo advantageous to record the most material circum- 
 Btancea attendant upon it. May my bodily weakness, and the sud-
 
 1812-1816.] DANGEROUS ILLNESS. 27 
 
 denness with which, it came, remind me of the uncertainty of life ; 
 and may the great and immediate mercy, bestowed upon me spiri- 
 tually, be a continual memorial, that ' the Lord is full of compassion, 
 and long suffering,' and ' a very present help in trouble ! ' 
 
 " I was seized with a bilious fever, in January. When I first felt 
 myself unwell, I prayed that I might have a dangerous illness, pro- 
 vided that illness might bring me nearer to my God. I gradually 
 grew worse ; and when the disorder had assumed an appearance 
 very alarming to those about me, I spent nearly an hour in most 
 fervent prayer. I have been, for some years, perplexed with doubts ; 
 I do not know if they did not arise more from the fear of doubting 
 than from any other cause. The object of my prayer was, that this 
 perplexity might be removed; and the next day, when I set about 
 examining my mind, I found that it was entirely removed, and that 
 it was replaced by a degree of certain conviction, totally different 
 from anything I had before experienced. It would be difficult to 
 express the satisfaction and joy which I derived from this alteration. 
 ' Now know I that my Redeemer liveth ' was the sentiment upper- 
 most in my mind, and in the merits of that Redeemer I felt a con- 
 fidence that made me look on the prospect of death with perfect 
 indifference. No one action of my life presented itself with any 
 eort of consolation. I knew that by myself I stood justly con- 
 demned ; but I felt released from the penalties of sin by the blood 
 of our sacrifice. In Ilim was all my trust." 
 
 After his recovery, he thus writes to Earlham : — 
 
 " Perhaps you might think that your letters were not sufficiently 
 valued by me if they remained unnoticed; they were both tiiily 
 welcome, especially where they described your feelings at the pro- 
 spect of the termination (I earnestly hope only the earthly termina- 
 tion) of our long and faithful union. My wife tells me that she said 
 in her letter that I mentioned you all in my illness. This was but 
 a languid description of the extent and force of love I felt towards 
 you, and of gratitude to you to whom I owe so great a portion of all 
 that has been pleasant to me in my past life, and perhaj^s much of 
 that which was consolatory to me at that awful but happy period. 
 
 C calls it a chastisement, but I never felt it as such. I looked 
 
 upon it when I was at the worst (and have not yet ceased to do so) 
 as a gift, and a blessing, and the choicest of my possessions. When 
 I was too weak to move or speak, my mind and heart were at full 
 work on these meditations, and my only lamentation was that I 
 could not feel sufficiently glad or grateful for the mercy, as un- 
 bounded as unmerited, which I experienced. This mercy was to 
 know the sins of my past life, that the best actions of it were but 
 dust and ashes, and good for nothing ; that, by the righteous doom 
 of the law, I stood convicted and condemned; but that full and 
 sufficient satisfaction had already been made by Him who came to 
 save sinners ; and such was the ease and confidence with which this 
 conviction inspired me, that death was not attended with a terror." 
 
 Fifteen years afterwards, he thus refers to the impressions
 
 28 THE EFFECT ON HIS MIND. [^t. 26-30. 
 
 made upon his mind during this iUness. " It was then," 
 he says, " that some clouds in my mind were dispersed ; and 
 from that day to this, whatever reason I may have had to 
 distrust my own salvation, I have never been harassed by a 
 doubt respecting our revealed religion." As his health and 
 strength returned, he engaged with increased earnestness in 
 supporting various benevolent societies, especially the Bible 
 Society ; and his commonplace books during the years 
 1813-1816 are chiefly filled with memoranda on this sub- 
 ject. He came prominently forward in the controversy be- 
 tween the supporters of the Bible Society and those who 
 -united with Dr Marsh, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, 
 in opposing it. 
 
 These occupations filled up the short intervals of leisure 
 afforded by his close attention to business ; and while he 
 continued to reside at the Brewery, few events occurred to 
 vary his life. Some glimpses into the state of his mind are 
 given in the following letters : — 
 
 " Spitalfields, December 25, 1813. 
 
 " .... I have often observed the advantage of having some fixed 
 settling time in pecuniary affairs. It gives an opportunity of ascer- 
 taining the balance of losses and gains, and of seeing where we have 
 succeeded and where failed, and what errors or neglects have caused 
 the failure. 
 
 " Now, I thought, why not balance the mind in the same way — 
 observe our progi-ess, and trace to their source our mistakes and 
 oversights ? And what better time for this than Christmas-day, fol- 
 lowed by Sunday ? And what better employment of those days ? 
 So it was fixed ; and, consequently, I refused invitation after invita- 
 tion — to Upton, Doughty Street, Plashet, Hampstead, Coggeshall, 
 and Clifton. And now for a history of my day. After breakfast, 
 I read, attentively, the 1st of St Peter, with some degree of that 
 spirit with which I always wish to study the Scriptures. To me, at 
 least, the Scrif)tures are nothing without prayer ; and it is sometimes 
 surprising to me what beauties they unfold, how much even of 
 worldly wisdom they contain, and how they are stamped with the 
 clear impression of truth, when read under any portion of this in- 
 fluence ; and without it how unmoving they appear. 
 
 " I also read Cooper's first ' I'ractical Sermon,' the text — 'What is 
 a man profited, if ho shall gain tiic whole world, and lose his own 
 Boul y ' Tills is a subject which, of all others of the kind, most fre- 
 quently engages my thoughts Well, I went to church : we 
 
 had one of Mr Pratt's best sermons, and I stayed the Communion. 
 I could not but fool grateful to see so many persons, who at least 
 
 liad Home serious tlioiights of religion I am not so ignorant 
 
 of myself aa to tiiink that I have made any suitable advances. No,
 
 1812-1817.] RESIDES AT HAMPSTEAD. 29 
 
 Every day's experience is a sufficient antidote against any such flat- 
 tering delusion ; for every day I see, and have reason to condemn, 
 the folly, the insanity which immerses me — the whole of my mind 
 and powers — in so trifling a portion of their interest as this world 
 contains. But yet I feel it an inestimable blessing to have been con- 
 ducted to the precincts and the threshold of truth, and to have some 
 desires, vague and iueifectual as they are, after better things. 
 
 " In the evening I sat down, in a business-like manner, to my 
 mental account. In casting up the incidental blessings of the year, 
 I found none to compare with my illness : it gave such a life, such 
 a reality and nearness, to my prospects of futurity ; it told me, in 
 language so conclusive and intelligible, that here is not my abiding 
 city. It expounded so powerfully the scriptural doctrine of Atone- 
 ment, by shewing what the award of my fate must be, if it depended 
 upon my own merits, and what that love is which offei'S to avert 
 condemnation by the merits of another : in short, my sickness has 
 been a source of happiness to me in every way." 
 
 In the summer of the year 1815, he removed from Lon- 
 don to a house at North End, Hampstead, that his children, 
 now four in number, might have the benefit of country air. 
 The following extract is from his commonplace book : — 
 
 "North End, Sunday, August 6, 1815. 
 
 " Being too unwell to go to church, I have spent the morning (with 
 occasional wanderings in the fields) in reading and pondering upon 
 the Bible; viz., St James's and St John's epistles. How much sound 
 wisdom and practical piety in the first, how devout and holy a spirit 
 breathes through the second : the one exposing, with a master's 
 hand, the infirmities, the temptations, and the delusions of man ; 
 the other, evidencing the love he teaches, seems of too celestial a 
 spirit to mingle much with hutuan affairs, and perpetually reverts to 
 the source of his consolation and hope : with him, Christ is all in all, 
 the sum and substance of aU his exhortations, the beginning and end 
 of every chapter. 
 
 " I now sit down to recall some marked events, which have lately 
 happened. First, then, Friday, July 7, was an extraordinary day 
 to me. In the morning, I ascertained that all the hopes we had in- 
 dulged of large profits in business were false. We were sadly disap- 
 pointed, for I went to town in the morning some thousands of pounds 
 richer in my own estimation than I returned at night. This was my 
 first trial ; next, about nine o'clock, a dreadful explosion of gun- 
 powder took place in a house adjacent to the brewery ; eight lives 
 were lost, and great damage done. For a long time it seemed be- 
 j'ond hope to expect to keep the fire from the premises. The morn- 
 ing changed me from afHuence to competence, and the evening was 
 likely to have converted competence into poverty. 
 
 " To finish all, at night my house was robbed. This, if we had 
 heard it, might have seriously alarmed my wife, in her present 
 delicate state of health. How easily can I bear the transitions of 
 fortune, and see without murmuring, and even with cheei-fulnes*
 
 30 REFLECTIONS. [^t. 26-30. 
 
 my golden hopes blighted; but 'bitter indeed, and intimately keen,' 
 would any wound be that affected her. I have often repeated these 
 lines of Shakspeare : — 
 
 ' Steep me in poverty to the very lips. 
 
 Give to captivity me and my utmost hopes, 
 
 I still can find in some part, of my soul 
 
 A drop of patience 
 
 But there, where I have gamer'd up my heart,' <fec. 
 
 " On the following Tuesday I went to Weymouth, and found the 
 affairs of a friend, in whom I am sincerely interested, in a very bad 
 state. This is to me a subject of much anxiety ; but on my return 
 home I had another and a deeper trial. I found that it was neces- 
 sary to investigate 's business, which seems involved in much 
 
 difficulty. These two events together have been very mortifying to 
 me, but I have endeavoured to meet them with submissive fortitude. 
 Yet I find that I can suffer my own misfortunes with comparative 
 indifference, but cannot sit so easily under the misfortunes of those 
 that are near to me ; but in this I hope to improve, and to be enabled 
 to look upon trials, in whatever form they appear, as visitations from 
 the merciful hand of God. I hope my late uneasinesses have not 
 been entirely thrown away upon me. They have brought me to 
 feel the poverty and unsteadfastness of all human jDOssessions, and to 
 look upon life as a flower that falleth, while the grace and the fashion 
 of it perisheth — as a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then 
 vanisheth away. It has made me, too, (though still sadly deficient) 
 more earnest and more frequent in my appeals and entreaties to God, 
 that He would give me His wisdom to direct me, and His strength 
 to support me ; and, above all, that He would emancipate my heart 
 from the shackles of the flesh, and fix my hopes beyond all that is 
 in the world, ' the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride 
 of life.' Turn my heart to Thee, Lord; make me feel, daily 
 and hourly feel, as well as know — to act upon the persuasion, as 
 well as to be persuaded — that only in Thee I can rest in peace, and 
 only in Thy service I can act with wisdom." 
 
 TO JOSEPH JOHN GURNET, ESQ. 
 
 " Hampstead, April 12, 1816. 
 " It is very true that I have been worri-ed of late, but not about 
 the Malt Tax, for that is only a question of profit, one that I could 
 not regulate, and I find no disposition in my mind to regret what is' 
 irremediable. The thing which has given mo mieasiness, is the 
 (liscovery of what I consider errors in the management of the de- 
 partment of tlie brewery which has fallen to me lately ; and these 
 errors I am determined to cure. Now this involves much labour — 
 but labour I do not regard — and some anxiety, considering my in- 
 experience upon many points connected with it: but I cannot say 
 tliat I liave felt tlii.s much. The true cause of my disquietude 
 ariscH from a certain feature in my own mind, which I can liardly 
 describe; a kind of uinegulatod ardour in any pursuit which ap- 
 pears to me to bo of great importance, which takes captive all my 
 faculties, and binds tlioni down to that pursuit, and will not let 
 theiu or nie rest till it is accomplished. I hate this ; it is so im-
 
 1816, 1817.] LETTER TO IIR GURNEY. 31 
 
 pleasant to wake, and to go to sleep, with your head full of vats and 
 tubs ; and I disapprove it more than I hate it. No man, I think, 
 can have more abstract conviction of the folly and futility of such 
 engagement of heart upon objects so utterly trifling and undurable. 
 I see that it is an infirmity ; I deeply feel that it chokes the good 
 seed, and is a most pernicious weed, and I feel the breaches that it 
 makes in my own quiet : yet so much am I its slave that it will in- 
 trude into the midst of such reflections, and carry me off to my next 
 gyle.* How sincerely I do often wish that I could direct this f ei-vent 
 energy about temporals into its proper channel : that I could be as 
 warm about things of infinite importance as I am about dust and ashes. 
 " If I cannot accomplish this, I wish we could divide it, I keep 
 half for my business, and give you half for your book.f How can 
 you, my dear brother, be languid and spiritless with such a thing 
 before you, and with such a capacity for doing it excellently ? Are 
 you not ashamed that I should be more anxious about makmg 
 porter than you are about making Christians? At it, my dear 
 fellow ! at it with vigour; but when you find your mind unsuited 
 for it, write me another letter, for the last was a great pleasure to 
 your affectionate brother, T. F. Buxton." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1816, 1817. 
 An incident -wliich occurred during the summer of 1816, 
 is thus mentioned by j\Ir Buxton in a letter to his wife, 
 who fortunately was absent at the time : — 
 
 " Spitalfields, July 15, 1816. 
 
 " As you must hear the story of our dog Prince, I may as well 
 tell it you. On Thursday morning, when I got on my horse at S. 
 Hoare's, David told me that there was something the matter with 
 Prince, that he had killed the cat, and almost killed the new dog, 
 and had bit at him and Elizabeth. I ordered him to be tied up and 
 taken care of, and then rode off to town. When I got into Hamp- 
 stead, I saw Prince covered with mud, and running furiously, and 
 biting at everything. I saw him bite at least a dozen dogs, two 
 boys, and a man. 
 
 " Of course I was exceedingly alarmed, being persuaded he was 
 mad. I tried every effort to stop him or kill him, or to drive him 
 into some outhouse, but in vain. At last he sprang up at a boy, 
 and seized him by the breast ; happily I was near him, and knocked 
 him off with my whip. He then set off towards London, and I rode 
 by his side, waiting for some opportunity of stopping him. I con- 
 tinually spoke to him, but he paid no regard to coaxing or scolding. 
 You may suppose I was seriously alarmed, dreading the immense 
 mischief he might do, having seen him do so much in the few pre- 
 
 * A "gyle" is the technical name t On the Evidences of the Christian 
 for a brewing. Religion. See the works of John. 
 
 Joseph Gumey.
 
 32 ADVENTURE WITH A MAD DOG. [^t. 30-31. 
 
 ceding minutes. I was terrified at the idea of his getting into 
 Camden Town and London, and at length considering that if ever 
 there was an occasion that justified a risk of life, this was it, I de- 
 termined to catch him myself. Happily he ran up to Pryor's gate, 
 and I threw myself from my horse upon him, and caught him by 
 the neck : he bit at me and struggled, but without effect, and I 
 succeeded in securing him, without his biting me. He died yester- 
 day, raving mad. 
 
 "Was there ever a more merciful escaj^e ? Think of the children 
 being gone ! , I feel it most seriously, but I cannot now write more 
 fully. I have not been at all nervous about it, though certainly rather 
 low, occasioned partly by this, and partly by some other things. 
 
 " I do not feel much fit for our Bible meeting on Wednesday — 
 but I must exert myseK. 
 
 " P. S. — Write me word whether Fowell has any wound on his 
 fingers, and if he has one made by the dog, let it be cut out im- 
 mediately; mind, these are my positive orders." 
 
 He afterwards mentioned some particulars wliicli lie had 
 omitted in this hurried letter : — 
 
 "When I seized the dog," he said, "his struggles were so despe- 
 rate that it seemed at first almost impossible to hold him, till I 
 lifted him up in the air, when he was more easily managed, and I 
 contrived to ring the bell. I was afraid that the foam, which was 
 pouring from his mouth in his furious efforts to bite me, might get 
 into some scratch, and do me injury; so with great difiSculty, I held 
 him with one hand, while I put the other into my pocket and forced 
 on my glove ; then I did the same with my other hand, and at last 
 the gardener opened the door, saying, ' What do you want? ' 'I've 
 brought you a mad dog,' replied I ; and telling him to get a strong 
 chain, I walked into the yard, carrying the dog by his neck. I was 
 determined not to kill him, as I thought if he should prove not to 
 be mad, it would be a great satisfaction to the three persons whom 
 he had bitten. 1 made the gardener, who was in a terrible fright, 
 secure the collar round his neck and fix the other end of the chain 
 to a tree, and then walking to its furthest range, with all my force, 
 which was nearly exhausted by his frantic struggles, I flung him 
 away from me, and sprang back. He made a desperate bound after 
 me, but finding himself foiled, he uttered the most fearful yell I 
 ever heard. All that day ho did nothing but rush to and fro, 
 champing the foam which gushed from his jaws; we threw him 
 meat, and he snatched it with fury, but instantly dropped it again. 
 
 " The next day when I went to see him, 1 thought the chain 
 seemed wf)rn, so I pinned him to the ground between the prongs of 
 a pitchfork, and tlicn fixed a much larger chain round his neck; 
 wlieii 1 pulled oil' the fork, he sprang up and made a dash at me, 
 which snapped the old chain in two ! He died in forty-eight hours 
 from the time ho wont mad." 
 
 He -writes to his wife a day or two afterwards : — 
 " 1 shot all the dogs, and drowned all the cats. The man and
 
 1816, 1817.] DISTRESS IN SPITALFIELDS. 33 
 
 boys who were bitten are doing pretty well. Their wounds were 
 immediately attended to, cut, and burnt out. 
 
 " What a terrible business it was. You must not scold me for 
 the risk I ran ; what I did I did from a conviction that it was my 
 duty, and I never can think that an over-cautious care of self, in 
 circumstances where your risk may preserve others, is so great a 
 virtue as you seem to think it. I do believe that if I had slirunk 
 from the danger, and others had suffered in consequence, I should 
 have felt more pain than I should have done had I received a bite." 
 
 The autumn of 1816 was one of great suffering through- 
 out the land, and in Spitalfields the silk trade was almost 
 stagnant, and the weavers, always trembling on the brink 
 of starvation, were plunged into the deepest misery. It 
 was increased by the constant influx into the parish of the 
 poorest class of London workpeople, who could find no 
 lodging elsewhere. A soup society had been long before 
 established, but the distress far exceeded the means pro- 
 vided for its alleviation. Under these circumstances it was 
 determined to hold a meeting on the subject at the Mansion 
 House. Mr Buxton and Mr Samuel Hoare delayed their 
 usual visit to Norfolk, in order to explore, and assist in 
 relieving the sufferings of the Spitalfields' poor. 
 
 TO MRS BDXTON AT EARLHAM. 
 
 " Spitalfields, November 9, 1816. 
 " . . . . S. Hoare and I came from Hampstead to attend a com- 
 mittee this morning, and afterwards visited the poor. The wretched- 
 ness was great indeed, but I felt most compassion for a poor old 
 creature of eighty, living alone without a fire or blanket. She 
 seemed quite bewildered by the sight of silver; her twilight of 
 intellect lost in gratitude and amazement. Poor old thing ! that 
 she, with all the infirmities of age, and without one earthly consola- 
 tion, should look upon the prospect of a good meal as a cause of 
 extravagant joy and real happiness, and that we, with the command 
 of eveiy coinfort, in full strength, without a bodily want, should 
 ever repine at trifling discomfitures, is, I hope, a lesson. We are 
 going to have a public meeting, and I trust a profitable one, for 
 without a large supply of money we must suspend our operations. 
 George Kett sent me £50 to-day." 
 
 A brief extract may be given from his speech at this 
 meeting. After mentioning the causes which had produced, 
 he says, " a degree, an expanse of distress utterly beyond 
 my powers to describe," he contuaues : — 
 
 " I could detain you till midnight with the scenes we have wit- 
 nessed. From these rough minutes which I hold in my hand, taken 
 on the spot, in the very houses of the poor, drawn not from the
 
 34 MR BUXTON'S SPEECH. [^t. 30, 31. 
 
 fictions of a warm imagination, but from scenes of actual life — from 
 the sad realities before us, I could disclose to you a faithful though 
 a faint picture of such desperate calamity and unutterable ruin, that 
 the heart must be stony indeed that did not sicken at the sight. 
 First, I would lead you to the roof of & house hardly deserving the 
 name of a garret ; there sat three human beings, each seventy years 
 of age — each with the ghastly lineaments of famine ; a few bricks 
 were their only chair, and their only table ; a little of our soup their 
 only provision ; a little straw and some shreds of an old coat their 
 only bed ! Next, I would shew you a family of nine ; the father 
 disabled — the mother sickly — their furniture, their bed, their looms 
 — every article of present use, the very implements of future labour, 
 had been surrendered to the demands of hunger ! I will not 
 exhaust your feelings by further recitals of what has met our eyes, 
 
 but hasten to a larger topic 
 
 " My Lord, I feel more and more that I cannot do justice to the 
 distress. I wish I could prevail upon you to see it with your own 
 eyes. Come when you please, select almost your own street, almost 
 your own house in that street, your own room in that house, and I 
 undertake that in that room you will find a proof that our picture 
 is faint and feeble. Come amongst us, and we will shew you the 
 father of a large family, whom we found in the act of pulling down 
 his stove, to exchange it for food. The dread of future cold was less 
 violent than the cravings of immediate hunger. Come by day, and 
 we will lead you to a widow in the last stage of illness, yet — the 
 only blanket of the dying wretch has been sent to procure bread ! 
 Come by night, and we will shew you the baskets and the sheds of 
 our markets filled with these wretched creatures — there they find 
 their nightly lodging, and there amongst its scraps and refuse they 
 
 pick out their daily food In ordinary times the poor are the 
 
 best friends of the poor. There is (and happy is it) a sympathy in 
 affliction (we find it as a ray of light amid the gloom), a fellow-feeling 
 in distress, a kind of benefit society to which all the wretched are 
 free, — a society not, indeed, enrolled and registered by Act of Parlia- 
 ment, but by higher authority, and with more awful sanction, by 
 the instincts which Providence has implanted in the human heart; 
 but this is a virtue for better times. The poor man can hardly 
 support him.self, and therefore can hardly assist others. I do not 
 mean to say that he does not. We have met with instances which 
 have exalted our respect for human nature — instances which recall 
 the widow recorded in the New Testament, who ' out of her want 
 gave all her living ; ' — and the widow of Sarepta in the Old Testa- 
 ment, wh<jse whole possession was 'a handful of meal in a barrel, 
 and a drop of oil in a cruse,' yet she was willing to share them with 
 the afHlcted stranger. But if this prove that the poor are not bereft 
 of every ordinary Hui)p()rt, is it not a lesson to us ? If the poor man 
 who is obliged to deny his unsatiated appetites — who, having divided 
 Buflicient from liis only loaf to suppoi't life, but not to satisfy hunger, 
 bides the remainder for the next day's meal — if he yet finds some 
 place for mercy in his soul, and, mi.seiable himself, is yet impelled 
 to share his remaining crust with the more miserable — if the strong
 
 1816, 1817.] SUCCESS OF THE MEETING. 35 
 
 impulse of humanity urges him to so dear a sacrifice, does it not 
 teach the man who is clothed in soft raiment and fares sumptuously 
 every day to give something more than the crumbs that fall from 
 his table to the wretchedness that surrounds his gate ? But why 
 this superior mercy in the poor ? Because he has learned it in the 
 school of afSiction. He knows what it is to want bread, and this has 
 opened his heart and enlivened his affections for those who are 
 exposed to the rigour of the season and the craving importunities of 
 hunger; but the rich man cannot feel this. He can experimentally 
 know nothing of what it is, when the poor man, willing to strain 
 every nerve in labour is denied the employment which might stanch 
 the tears of his wife and appease the cries of his children — when, like 
 the wretch I have mentioned, he is willing to suffer, if he might 
 suffer alone, firm against his own afflictions, but when he looks around 
 him, sunk to the effeminacy of tears." 
 
 This speech, attracted very great attention. It re- 
 appeared ill publications of the most widely different 
 character. It was republished by the Spitalfields' Benevo- 
 lent Society, as the best means of creating sympathy with 
 their exertions ; it was republished by Hone and the 
 democrats, as the best statement of the miseries permitted 
 under the existing government ; and it was republished by 
 the friends of that government, "because," said they, "it 
 forms so beautiful a contrast to the language of those 
 wretched demagogues whose infamous doctrines would 
 increase the evils they affect to deplore." 
 
 The following letter from Mr Wilberforce, the first writ- 
 ten by him to his future ally and successor, may be deemed 
 almost prophetic : — 
 
 " Kensington Gore, November 28, 1816. 
 "My dear Sir, — I must in three words express the real pleasure 
 with which I have both read and heard of your successful effort on 
 
 Tuesday last, in behalf of the hungry and the naked But I 
 
 cannot claim the merit of being influenced only by regard for the 
 Spitalfields' sufferers in the pleasure I have received from your per- 
 formances at the meeting. It is partly a selfish feeling, for I anti- 
 cipate the success of the efforts which I trust you will one day make 
 in other instances, in an assembly in which I trust we shall be 
 fellow-labourers, both in the motives by which we are actuated and 
 in the objects to which our exertions will be directed. — I am, my 
 dear sir, yours sincerely, W. Wilberforce." 
 
 " By this one meeting at the Mansion House," says the 
 report of the Spitalfields' Benevolent Society, "£43,369 
 were raised." Two days after it had been held. Lord 
 Sidmouth sent for Mr Buxton, to inform him, that " the 
 Prince had been so pleased by the spirit and temper of the
 
 36 MRS FRY, [^T. 30, 31, 
 
 meeting, and so strongly felt the claims that had been urged, 
 that he had sent them £5000." 
 
 With these exertions for the poor around him, Mr Bux- 
 ton's public career may be said to have commenced. He 
 was now launched upon that stream of labour for the good 
 of others, along which his course lay for the remainder of 
 his life. His letters shew the eagerness of his desire to be 
 employing his energies in warring against the evils around 
 him. " I want to be living in a higher key," he remarked, 
 " to do some good before I die.'' His prayers were inces- 
 sant that God would employ him as an instrument of 
 spreading His kingdom, and of doing good to mankind. 
 He had gxeat delight in the service of his Lord and Master; 
 nor did he ever forget to thank God with deep gratitude 
 when any opportunity, however trifling, was afforded him 
 of exerting himself for others. To one of his relations, 
 who had entered upon a benevolent undertaking which 
 required considerable personal sacrifices, he writes : — 
 
 " For my part, I cannot lament for and pity those who make great 
 sacrifices in compliance with conscience ; such dedication of self is, in 
 my view, much more a matter of envy. Assuredly, if we could look 
 at such sacrifices throughout their whole extent, in their consequences 
 here to others, and hereafter to ourselves, we should perceive that 
 the permission to be so engaged is a privilege of inestimable value. 
 I am certain that you are only actuated by a conviction of duty, and 
 ehaU I repine and grieve because you are enabled to follow so high 
 a director ? Or shall I not rather heartily rejoice that you are called 
 to such a service, and that the call is not resisted ? I often think of 
 those verses in the Acts, 'rejoicing that they were counted worthy 
 to suffer shame for his name ; and daily in the Temple and in every 
 house, they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ.' And so 
 I am half inclined to envy you, and more than half to wish that, 
 somehow or other, I were as well engaged." 
 
 It was no part of his character to indulge in vague desires 
 without a bold struggle for their accomplishment. Having 
 done what he could in relieving the miseries of his poor 
 neighbours, he soon entered upon a wider field of bene- 
 volence. 
 
 One day, while walking past Newgate with ]\Ir Samuel 
 Hoarc, their conversation turned upon the exertions of their 
 sister-in-law, I\Irs Fry, and her companions, ft)r the improve- 
 ment of the prisoners within its walls ; and this suggested 
 tlic idea of employing themselves in a similar manner. 
 1'iicy soon entered into communication with Mr William
 
 1816,1817.] VISIT TO NEWGATE. 37 
 
 Crawford, Mr Peter Botlford, and other gentlemen, who 
 were also anxious to improve the condition, at that time 
 deplorable to the last degree, of the English jails. 
 
 The exertions of JMrs Fry and her associates had prepared 
 the way ; public attention had been drawn to the subject ; 
 and in 1816, the Society for the Eeformation of Prison Dis- 
 cipline was formed. In the list of the committee, Mr Bux- 
 ton's name stands between those of Dr Lushington and 
 Lord Suffield, (then the Hon. E. Harbord,) both of whom 
 were afterwards so closely associated with him in the attack 
 upon negro slavery. 
 
 On January the 0th, 1817, he WTites from Hampstead to 
 Mrs Buxton : — 
 
 " After I had written to you yesterday, I went with Peter Bed- 
 ford and Charles on a visit to Newgate. I saw four poor creatures 
 who are to be executed on Tuesday next. Poor things, God have 
 mercy on them ! The sight of them was sufficient for that day. I 
 felt no further incUuation to examine the prison. It has made me 
 long much that my hfe may not pass quite uselessly ; but that, in 
 Bome shape or other, I may assist in checking and diminishing crime 
 and its consequent misery. Surely it is in the power of all to do 
 something in the service of their Master ; and surely I among the 
 rest, if I were now to begin and endeavour, to the best of my capa- 
 city, to serve Him, might be the means of good to some of my fel- 
 low-creatures. This capacity is, I feel, no mean talent, and attended 
 with no inconsiderable responsibility. I must pray that I may at 
 length stir mj'self up, and be enabled to feel somewhat of the real 
 spirit of a missionary, and that I niay devote myself, my influence, 
 my time, and, above all, my aflections, to the honour of God, and 
 the happiness of man. My mission is evidently not abroad, but it 
 is not less a mission on that account. I feel that I may journey 
 through life by two very different paths, and that the time is now 
 come for choosing which I will pursue. I may go on, as I have 
 been going on, not absolutely forgetful of futurity, nor absolutely 
 devoted to it. I may get riches and repute, and gratify my ambi- 
 tion, and do some good and more evil; and, at length, I shall find 
 all my time on earth expended, and in retracing my life I shall see 
 little but occasions lost, and capacities misapplied. The other is a 
 path of more labour and less indulgence. I may become a real sol- 
 dier of Christ ; I may feel that I have no business on earth but to 
 do His will and to walk in His ways, and I may direct every energy 
 I have to the service of others. Of these paths, I know which I 
 would most gladly choose : 'but what I would, that I do not; but 
 what I hate, that do I.' In short, the cares, and the pleasures, and 
 the business of this world, choke the good seed, and we are perpetu- 
 ally deceived. We would sow to the spirit, and we sow to the flesh ; 
 we desire heaven, and we are chained to earth."
 
 38 DEATH OF CHAELES BUXTON. [^Et. 30, 31. 
 
 He now began to entertain thoughts of entering Parlia- 
 ment, and at the election of February 1817, he went down 
 to Weymouth, at the invitation of Mr W. Williams, to stand 
 on the same interest. He did not, however, offer himself 
 as a candidate. 
 
 "Weymouth, February 1817. 
 
 " I am far from regretting that I came, as I do not doubt it will 
 secure me an independent seat next election : that word ' indepen- 
 dent,' has been the obstacle upon this occasion. I intend to spend a 
 good portion of the next two years in preparation for the House. I 
 hope I shall either do good, or receive pleasvu-e, when I get there : 
 as yet, I have had in politics neither one nor the other. I am 
 pining for home : nothmg suits me worse than this kind of busy 
 leisure ; too much to do to have time to myself, and too httle to do 
 to occupy my time." 
 
 " Hampstead, Apnl 5. 
 
 " Last Sunday I was at Fakenham, with Charles, who is very un- 
 well. God grant he may recover ! I have much to thank God 
 about with regard to him, his increased and increasing piety and 
 seriousness. For myself, I sometimes fear my treasure is too much 
 in my business, it is too much my amusement, the topic to which I 
 turn with pleasure. South says, ' Whatsoever a man accounts his 
 treasure, that he places his whole delight in ; it entertains his eye, 
 refreshes his fancy, feeds his thoughts, and affords him a continual 
 feast.' God grant that I may so meditate in His law, and so dwell 
 within the walls of His spiritual temple, that He, and my duties to- 
 wards Him, may be my chief delight ! " 
 
 Soon afterwards, he became absorbed in anxiety about 
 his brother Charles, who had shewn spnptoms of a decline, 
 which at length proved ftital. A more grievous calamity 
 could scarcely have befallen Mr Buxton. Though their 
 characters stood far apart, the two brothers had some points 
 of strong and endearing resemblance. The lively gladness 
 of heart which tlnew a constant sunshine over the counte- 
 nance of the younger, would often relax the graver brow of 
 the elder brother ; and, indeed, though the pressure of care 
 and business gave Mr liuxton a habitually grave aspect, 
 and thougli it was a part of his character to be so absorbed by 
 the pursuit he had in hand, as to seem abstracted ; yet there 
 was in liiin throughout life a vein of playfulness which shewed 
 itself often when least expected. Even when he himself was 
 somewhat silent and oppressed, he courted the cheerfulness 
 of others, and delighted in it. But the friend that could best 
 enliven h'un was lost when his brother sunk into the grave. 
 
 Twenty years afterwards, in reviewing the leading occur- 
 rences of liia life, he thus refers to this event : —
 
 1516,1817.] WORK ON PRISON" DISCIPLINE. 39 
 
 " I know of no tie, that of husband and wife excepted, which 
 could be stronger than the one which united Charles and me. We 
 were what the lawyers call * tenants in common ' of everything. He 
 was, I think, the most agreeable person I ever knew. A kind of 
 original humour played about his conversation. It was not wit ; it 
 was anything rather than that species of humour which provokes 
 loud laughter ; it was not exactly naivete, though that comes nearest 
 to it; it was an intellectual playfulness which provided for every 
 hour, and extracted from every incident a fund of delicate merriment. 
 He died at Weymouth in the year 1817; — and Thou knowest, Lord, 
 and Thou only, how deeply I loved, and how long and how intensely 
 I lamented him." 
 
 His bro tiler's mdow and cliildren were the objects of his 
 tender care. He took a house for them near his own at 
 Hampstead, and as his brother-in-law, ]\Ir Samuel Hoare, 
 resided in the same place, the three famihes became united 
 in habits of the closest intercourse. 
 
 In the winter of 1817, Mr and Mrs Buxton, and Mr S. 
 and Mr J. J. Gurney, went over to France, with the Rev. 
 Francis Cunningham, who was anxious to establish a branch 
 of the Bible Society at Paris. Mr Buxton and his brothers- 
 in-law took a great interest in this undertakmg, and were 
 also desirous to procure information as to the excellent 
 systems of prison discipline adopted in the jails of Antwerp 
 and Ghent. He then examined minutely into the state of 
 the London jails, and, to use his own expression, his inquiries 
 developed a system of folly and wickedness which surpassed 
 aU belief. In the follo^^dng year he published a work, 
 entitled, " An Inquiiy whether Crime be Produced or Pre- 
 vented by our present System of Prison Discipline." The 
 book was received with a degree of attention to which he 
 had never aspired, running through six editions ui the course 
 of the first year ; and a very considerable impulse was given 
 to the general feeling upon the subject of which it treated. 
 The work was thus alluded to in the House of Commons by 
 Sir James Mackintosh : — 
 
 " The question of our penal code, as relating to prison abuses, has 
 been lately brought home to the feelings of every man in the country 
 by a work so full of profound information, of such great abiUty, of 
 such chaste and commanding eloquence, as to give that House and 
 the country a firm assurance that its author could not embark in 
 any undertaking which would not reflect equal credit upon himself 
 and upon the object of his labours." 
 
 Mr Wilberforce wrote to him on the same subject, and, 
 
 E
 
 40 REFLECTIONS. [^t. 32, 33. 
 
 after warmly congratulating him on the weight it appeared 
 to carry, he adds : — 
 
 "May it please God to continue to animate you with as much 
 benevolent zeal, and to dii-ect it to worthy objects. I hope you will 
 come soon into Parliament, and be able to contend in person, as well 
 as with your pen, for the rights and happiness of the oppressed and 
 the friendless. I claim you as an ally in this blessed league." 
 
 The good effects of this book were not confined to 
 England : it was translated into French, and distributed on 
 the Continent. It even reached Turkey ; and in India, a 
 gentleman of the name of Blair, having chanced to read it, 
 was induced to examine into the state of the Madras jails. 
 He found them in a wretched condition, and did not rest 
 till a complete reformation had been effected. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1818, 1819. 
 
 He closed the year 1817 with the following reflections in 
 his commonplace book : — 
 
 '• This year has been chequered with events of deep interest — some 
 joyful, and some dressed in the darkest sable. But how encouraging 
 is it to be able to recognise in all, and especially in the mournful 
 circumstances of the year, the hand of a merciful Providence ! This 
 day last year I spent with my beloved brother ; together we went to 
 our usual place of worship, to hear our (especially his) beloved 
 minister, and together we wandered through the future. 
 ' But God has wisely liid from human ej'es 
 The dark decrees of Fate.' 
 
 ** Very soon afterwards, I was called to Weymouth to the election. 
 I need not now enter into the reasons which induced me not to 
 stand ; suffice it to say, I would not be dependent. With my deter- 
 mination I have been well satisfied. I fancy my election at a future 
 l)eriod is very probable. If it will tend to my real good or the good 
 of others, I believe it will be so determined by Providence ; if not, 
 I earnestly pray God to avert the fulfilment of my wishes. I am 
 too well aware of my own blindness, to have my heart much set 
 
 on it While I was at Weymouth, my sweet boy, Harry, got 
 
 through the bars of his nursery window, and was discovered merely 
 holding by liis hands with the utmost unconcern. What was not 
 his inotlicr — wLat was not I spared 1 . . . . What shall I render to 
 the Lord for all 1 lis mercies to me, of which (next to His inestimable 
 
 love in the redemption of the world) my wife is far the gi-catest 
 
 I (ift(.-n wonder at the goodness of God in giving to one so imworthy 
 to rich a trca.sure. 
 
 " .S(jon after my return from Weymouth began the heaviest affliction 
 of my life— the illiiets, the gradual and perceptible decay, alaa ! the
 
 1818, 1819.] INCIDENT IN THE BREWERY. 41 
 
 death, of my dearest brother. No day passes in which something or 
 other does not recall his beloved image, his lively manners, his unity 
 of heart. I trust that few days pass in which I forget to thank God 
 for this dispensation, and to rejoice that he has, as I doubt not he 
 has, ' for this corruptible put on incorruption.' 
 
 " His widow and her three children have been staying with us for 
 some time — much to my comfort, and, I hope, somewhat to hers. I 
 have read and heard of acts of faithful affection ; but I never heard, 
 or read, or saw anything to compare with the affection, kindness, 
 attention, and generosity displayed by S. Hoare to her. 
 
 " On Saturday last, in consequence of an almost obsolete promise 
 to sleep in town when all the other partners were absent, I slept at 
 Brick Lane. S. Hoare had complained to me that several of our men 
 were employed on the Sunday. To inquire into this, in the morn- 
 ing I went into the brew-house, and was led to the examination of a 
 vat containing 170 tons' weight of beer. I found it in what I con- 
 sidered a dangerous situation, and I intended to have it repaired the 
 next morning. I did not anticipate any immediate danger, as it had 
 stood so long. When I got to Wheeler Street Chapel, I did as I 
 usually do in cases of difficulty — I craved the direction of my 
 heavenly Friend, who will give rest to the burdened, and instruction 
 to the ignorant. 
 
 " From that moment I became very uneasy, and instead of pro- 
 ceeding to Hampstead, as I had intended, I returned to Bi'ick Lane. 
 On examination I saw, or thought I saw, a still further declension 
 of the iron pillars which supported this immense weight ; so I sent 
 for a surveyor; but before he came, I became apprehensive of 
 immediate danger, and ordered the beer, though in a state of 
 fermentation, to be let out. When he an-ived, he gave it as his 
 decided opinion that the vat was actually sinking, that it was not 
 secure for five minutes, and that if we had not emptied it, it would 
 probably have fallen. Its fall would have knocked down our steam- 
 engine, coppers, roof, with two great iron reservoirs full of water — 
 in fact, the whole brewery. 
 
 " How the new year may pass, who can tell ? I may not see the 
 end of it; but these are the active objects I propose for myself : — 
 
 To write a pamphlet on Prison Discipline. 
 
 To estabUsh a Savings' Bank in Spitalfields. 
 
 To recommence the sale of salt fish in Spitalfields. 
 
 To attend to the London Hospital, and to endeavour to make the 
 
 clergyman perform his duties, or to get bim superseded. 
 To establish a new Bible Association. 
 
 " May the grace of God assist me in these objects ; may He sanc- 
 tify my motives, and guard me from pride, and may I use my utmost 
 exertions, making His will mine ! " 
 
 In tlie spring of 1818, a dissolution of Parliament took 
 place, and Mr Buxton now offered himself as a candidate 
 for Weymouth. " It appears to me," he said, " to be the 
 sphere in which I could do most for my Master's service, 
 but I am perfectly willing to fill a lower place. It is only
 
 42 HIS FIRST ELECTIOK [JEi. 32, 33. 
 
 that I stall be as a common soldier instead of an officer : 
 if I can but serve Him, let Him choose what work I shall do." 
 While upon his canvass, he thus writes fi'om Bellfield : — 
 
 "June 4. 
 
 " I think we shall have a contest and a sharp one, and the result 
 is doubtful; however, I am very comfortable, and not at all anxious. 
 If it is right for me to succeed, I do not doubt I shall, and if it is 
 not right, I hope I shall not. I should return to privacy and the 
 dear enjoyments of my own family without disappointment or vex- 
 ation, and I think personally as well content with little as with great 
 things. Joseph, in our ride from Hampstead to London, mentioned, 
 a text which has been a very comfortable companion to me. ' In 
 all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct thy paths.' This 
 text, and another, 'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose 
 heart is stayed on Thee/ are constantly in my thoughts. My con- 
 tinual prayer is, that the Lord would work that termination which 
 His infinite wisdom knows to be the best ; which is, I think, very 
 probably praying against my own success." 
 
 "June 8. 
 
 " I am easy in my mind, leaving the event to Him who knows 
 whether the busy engagements of a public life will draw me nearer 
 to, or separate me further from Him ; and who also knows whether 
 He chooses me as an instrument of good ; and if He does. He will 
 bring the means used to a successful issue." 
 
 Four days before the election terminated, he writes : — 
 
 "June 26, 1818. 
 " I am very nearly sick of the bustle, and my expectations of suc- 
 cess are considerably diminished this morning ; but this is only my 
 own opmion. I am exceedingly popular with my i^arty, except as 
 to one point. We (that is, the party, for I have had nothing to do 
 
 with it) have made some most bitter attacks upon Sir for 
 
 his conduct in Spain. But when I hoard from a private friend of 
 his, that he was quite sunk and wretched, I expressed in my speech 
 yesterday the disdain I felt at promoting my cause by slander, and 
 said, that as he had been acquitted by a competent tribunal, he 
 must be considered as innocent. The violence of my party could 
 hardly bear this, and for tlie first time they gave some indications 
 of disapprobation. I told theni plainly that I would do what I con- 
 sidered an act of public justice, though it offended every friend I 
 
 had in the town." „„ , „„ , , 
 
 T0MR3BDXT0N. «/<me 29, 1818. 
 
 " The election is over. I am now going to the Hall to return 
 tlianks to my constituents. And so I ana a member of Parliament. 
 Well, I have not yet wished to decide the matter myself. My only 
 feeling has boon, if it is right, I trust it will take place; and if not, 
 I etjualiy trust it will bo prevented. I wisli you wore here to see 
 me chaired. The town is in an u)>roar. The bugle-horn is at this 
 moment playing, and lunidreds of peisons are collected on the 
 Ivsplanade. JOverybody has blue ribbous. I hope the children at 
 HampHtcad wear them."
 
 1818, 1819.] LETTERS. 43 
 
 TO ims BUXTON. , 
 
 " Hampstead, Decemher 6, 1818. 
 
 ". . . . I have passed a remarkably comfortable Sunday; after 
 breakfast I sat down to Law's ' Spirit of Prayer.' I wonder why 
 his ■^Titings are not more popular ; there is about them a warmth 
 and a liveliness of persuasion, combined with a force of reason, 
 which makes them very attractive to me. We then went to Wheeler 
 Chapel, where Mr Pratt gave us one of his best sermons. I dare 
 say any other person of the party would have complained of their 
 distractions if they had only been as attentive as I was ; but com- 
 pared with myself in general, I had my mind much fixed on the 
 service, and was much struck with many things in the prayer-book 
 which I have read a thousand times without notice. S. Hoare and 
 I stayed the sacrament, which I entered into more I think than I 
 ever did before. When I returned to my seat, I went through a 
 kind of service of prayer, which I by practice have formed : first, for 
 myself, that I may press forward towards the mark for the prize of 
 the high calling of Christ, and that I may be enabled to count all 
 things but loss in comparison ; next, that I may be led to tisef ul 
 objects, that I may be allowed to do something for the service of 
 mankind ; then, that my motives in this may be cleansed and puri- 
 fied, and that I may act as unto the Lord and not unto men ; next, 
 for protection and health, and the blessings of this life, that is, if 
 they are to conduce to my good, for I am afraid to ask for anything 
 
 absolutely The point, however, which has been all day most 
 
 upon my mind, is a desire that I may work for others in Christ ; 
 that is, that His Spirit may actuate me to do what good I can, that 
 I may have the high privilege of being His servant, and that the 
 performance of His will, and not the a^jplause of man, may be the 
 wages I seek. This verse has been very forcibly before my mind : 
 — ' Never turn away thy face from any poor man, and then the Lord 
 will never turn away His face from thee.' " 
 
 " December 9. 
 
 " I rode to Upton to breakfast this morning, since which I have 
 been engaged in some important calculations. These, however, have 
 been interrupted by a visit from the manager of the Friar's Mount 
 School. He gives the most satisfactory account of the expenditure 
 of the money I raised for them last year : two new schools have 
 been established, and two, which were about to be given up, are re- 
 vived. He has formed a plan by which six thousand children, now 
 uneducated, will be instructed. The money is all that is wanting, 
 viz., £4500, and I think I shall try. You will suppose I am mad, 
 but this is not the case. Certainly nothing of a charitable nature, 
 in which I have ever been engaged, has given me so much satisfac- 
 tion as these Sunday-schools ; and I feel, I hope, some gi-atitude for 
 the great favour of being allowed to be an instrument of good to 
 some hundreds of children during the past year. I never think of 
 these schools without pleasure. — With dearest love to you and the 
 children, and with a joyful heart at the expectation of meeting you 
 and tl;iem, yours, " T. F. Buxtox." 
 
 It will be remembered that at tlie commencement of tlio
 
 44 PLANS FOR THE POOR. [SLi. 52, 33. 
 
 year 1818, lie had determined to carry out several plans 
 for the benefit of the poor in Spitalfields, and for other 
 purposes of a similar character. In a paper written on 
 New- Year's day, 1819, he enters very fully into the details 
 of his exertions on each of the five tasks he had set him- 
 self, not one of which had been neglected. The first of 
 them had been " to write a pamphlet on prison discipline," 
 and after alluding to the unexpected success of his work on 
 that subject, he adds : — 
 
 " It has excited a spirit of inquiry on the subject, which I trust 
 will do much good. I only hope that what has benefited others has 
 not injured me. I cannot render myself insensible to the applause 
 it has received. In my heart, however, I know that it is no work 
 of mine, but that the Lord has been pleased, in great mercy, to 
 make me one of His instruments in this work. Lord, I entreat 
 Thee, in this and in all things, to purify my motives, and to enable 
 me to act as unto Thee, and not unto man ! Oh, guard my heart 
 from the delusions of vanity ! Make me to know how frail and 
 powerless I am in myself, and to cherish with gi-atitude, but with 
 humility, the inestimable privilege of being in any way Thy servant ! " 
 
 The paper closes with the following reflections upon the 
 burden of responsibility which he had lately undertaken. 
 It is interesting to see in what spirit he entered that arena, 
 on which he was for twenty years to fight the battle of the 
 oppressed : — 
 
 " Now that I am a member of Parliament, I feel earnest for the 
 honest, diligent, and conscientious discharge of the duty I have un- 
 dertaken. My prayer is for the guidance of God's Holy Spirit, that, 
 free from views of gain or popularity, — that, careless of all things 
 but fidelity to my trust, I may be enabled to do some good to my 
 country, and something for mankind, especially in their most im- 
 portant concerns. I feel the responsibility of the situation, and its 
 many temptations. On the other hand, I see the vast good which 
 one individual may do. May God preserve me from the snares 
 which may surround me; keep mo from the power of jDersonal 
 motives, from interest or passion, or prejudice or ambition, and so 
 enlarge my heart to feel the sorrows of the wretched, the miserable 
 condition of the guilty and tlic ignorant, that I may ' never turn 
 my face from any poor man; ' and so enlighten my understanding, 
 that I may be a cajjablo and resolute champion for those who want 
 and deserve a friend I " 
 
 Upon first taking liis scat in Parliament, his attention 
 was exclusively directed to tlie diflcrcnt forms of judicial 
 ]iunishmcnt. In the beginning of 1819, he took part in 
 two or three deliatos upon the subject of convict trauijjwrt- 
 ships, the state of which was proved by Mr Bennett and
 
 1S18, 1819.] CHARACTER OF HIS SPEECHES. 45 
 
 otlier members to be horrible in tbe last degree ; still the 
 reformation of prisons was the subject nearest to his heart. 
 On the 1st of March, Lord Castlereagh's motion for a 
 committee to inquire into the state of Prison Discipline 
 was carried ; and on the next evening, a motion for a com- 
 mittee on the Criminal Laws was made by Sir James 
 Mackintosh, and seconded by Mr Buxton, whose speech 
 met with success abundantly sufficient to dispel his fears of 
 uselessness in the House of Commons. 
 
 TO J. J. GURNET, ESQ. 
 
 "Brick Lane, March 4, 1819. 
 " Well, the effort is over. Last night came on the grand question. 
 I spoke for nearly an hour. I was low and dispirited, and much 
 tired (bodily) when I rose. I cannot say I pleased myself. I could 
 not, at first, get that freedom of language which is so essential, but 
 I rose with the cheers of the House, and contrived to give much of 
 what was on my mind. Everybody seems to have taken a more 
 favourable opinion of the speech than I did. The facts were irre- 
 sistible; and, for fear of tiring my auditors, I confined myself 
 principally to facts. You will see by the papers that we obtained a 
 victory. As for myself, I hope I did force myself into something 
 like indifference to my own success, provided the cause succeeded." 
 
 At the close of the debate, many of the most distin- 
 guished members of the House came up and introduced 
 themselves to him; Mr S. Hoare sat under the gallery 
 watching with delight the success of his friend. " I am 
 sure," said he afterwards, "if I had been received in the 
 House as he was, I should not have recovered from the 
 elevating effect of it for twenty years." 
 
 But the opinion of an impartial observer may be more 
 valuable. Mr W. Smith (M.P. for Norwich) writes to Mr 
 J. J. Gurney : — 
 
 " You will see the result of last night's debate by the papers. 
 Buxton acquitted himself to universal satisfaction. The House is 
 prepared to receive him with respect and kindness ; and his sterling 
 sense, his good language, and his earnest manner, fully keep up the 
 prepossession in his favour, so that I recollect very few who have 
 made their dehut with so much real advantage, and seem so likely 
 to maintain the station thus early assumed." 
 
 In accordance with the motions of the 1st and 3d of 
 March, two select committees were appointed, in both of 
 which Mr Buxton was included. The one was to inquire 
 into the feasibility of mitigathig the penal code, of which 
 V writes, March 11^ 1819 :—
 
 46 PRISON BILL. [^T. 32, 33. 
 
 "1 conjecture that no man on the committee goes so far as I go 
 — namely, to the abolition of the punishment of death, except for 
 murder ; but all go a very great way, and if we merely make forgery, 
 sheep and horse stealing, not capital, it is an annual saving of thirty 
 lives, which is something, and satisfies me in devoting my time to 
 the subject. I am confident that our opinions on prisons and 
 criminal law will ultimately prevail ; in short I am in high spirits 
 on the whole matter." 
 
 The other committee was appointed to examine the state 
 of jails throughout the kingdom ; and here we may briefly 
 state the final result of the exertions made for the improve- 
 ment of Prison Discipline. The committee published its first 
 report in 1 820, and the government was thereby induced 
 to bring in a bill for consolidating and amending the prison 
 laws then in existence. This bill was referred for revision 
 to a select committee, of which Mr Buxton was a member. 
 
 " You will be delighted," he writes soon afterwards to a friend, 
 " to hear that the Prison Bill is going on wonderfully well, beyond 
 all expectation. I made a speech the first day, stating the princi- 
 ples on which I thought we ought to proceed, and the committee 
 have subsequently adopted almost all of them ; so that I do believe 
 that this part of the business of my life will be done efiectually." 
 
 After much patient investigation, a bUl was prepared by 
 the committee, and immediately adopted by the two Houses 
 of Parliament ; and thus the English jails, instead of re- 
 maining " the nurseries and hot-beds of crune, the almost 
 inevitable ruin of all who entered within their walls," have 
 become, generally speaking, places where the improvement, 
 as well as the punishment, of the criminal is attempted. 
 Perfection, of course, is not yet attained ; the new system 
 has been of no avail in those prisons where exertions have not 
 been used to enforce it : but no man can read the descriptions 
 of the state of jails, from twenty-five to thirty years ago, and 
 compare them -with those of the present day, without being 
 astonished at the extent of the cvU and of the reform. 
 
 TO J. H. NORTH, ESQ. .. AprillO, 1S19. 
 
 " A report has reached me that you are likely to get a seat in 
 Parliament. Is there a bit of truth in it ? Is there the remotest 
 j)robability of so joyful an event? I'ray do not conceal it from me 
 a moment, for I speak only truth when I say it would materially 
 add to my happiness. I have plenty of acquaintances, but hardly a 
 familiar friund in tlio House, and this is a very needful thing. I 
 much want Homo one witli whom I can freely communicate, and 
 who would lionestly tell mo when I am right and when I am in 
 error; and I need not tell you liow fully my wishes would be 
 eatiflfied, if we were there together. Perhaps you will like to hear
 
 1818, 1819.] PARLIAMENTARY ELOQUENCE. 47 
 
 the impression the House makes upon me. I do not wonder that 
 80 many distinguished men have failed in it. The speaking re- 
 quired is of a very peculiar kind : the House loves good sense and 
 joking, and nothing else ; and the object of its utter aversion is that 
 species of eloquence which may be called Philippian. There are 
 not three men from whom a fine simile or sentiment would be 
 tolerated; all attempts of the kind are punished with general 
 laughter. An easy flow of sterling, forcible, plain sense is indis- 
 pensable ; and this, combined with great powers of sarcasm, gives 
 Brougham his station. Canning is an exception to this rule. His 
 reasoning is seldom above mediocrity ; but then, it is recommended 
 by language so wonderfully happy, by a manner so exquisitely 
 elegant, and by wit so clear, so pungent, and so unpremeditated, 
 that he contrives to begiiile the House of its austerity. Tierney 
 has never exerted himself much in my hearing. Wilberforce has 
 more native eloquence than any of them, but he takes no pains, and 
 allows himself to wander from his subject : he holds a very high 
 rank in the estimation of the House. 
 
 " And now let me tell you a secret : these great creatures turn 
 out, when viewed closely, to be but men, and men with whom you 
 need not fear competition. I again, therefore, say, ' Come among us,' 
 and I shall be greatly deceived if you do not hold a foremost place. 
 
 " My line is distinctly drawn. I care but little about party poli- 
 tics. I vote as I like ; sometimes i-iro, and sometimes con. ; but I 
 feel the greatest interest on subjects such as the slave trade, the 
 condition of the poor, prisons, and criminal law : to these I devote 
 myself, and should be quite content never to give another vote upon 
 a party question. I am upon the Jail and Criminal Law committees, 
 and devote three mornings in the week to one, and three to the 
 other; so I am contented, and feel as little inclination, as ability, to 
 engage in poUtical contentions. My body is strong enough, but any 
 stress upon my mind, just now, deranges me instantly. ' Indolent 
 vacuity of thought ' is my only remedy ; but it is not a very con- 
 venient medicine for one who has such a multitude of engagements. 
 How fares the law ? Is Ireland blessed with abundant litigation, or 
 does poverty deny this, the chief of luxuries ? " 
 
 TO MRS BUXTON. 
 
 "Weymouth, August 15, 1819. 
 "Here I am continually in the air, and certainly have already 
 found the benefit of it. I rode this morning for two hours on the 
 Wyke sands before breakfast. I have determined not to canvass, 
 but to be constantly walking about : the worst of it is, I do not 
 know above a third of their faces, and the names of about one in a 
 hundred, so I am in momentary danger of grasping the hand, and 
 inquiring with the kindest solicitude after the welfare of the wife 
 and family of a man who never saw Weymouth before in his life. 
 .... Weymouth is a striking place in one respect ; it brings me 
 into contact with some whose course is nothing short of tremendous, 
 and this trying question always recurs : ' You know better things ; 
 by mercy you have been led into other society, and the truth has 
 been discovered to your judgment upon the com))arison of this world 
 and eternity ; then is your coiu-se as much superior to theirs as your
 
 48 THE MANCHESTER RIOTS. [JEt. 32, 33. 
 
 light is — in short, with all the instruction and knowledge given you, 
 are you seeking heaven with your whole heart ? ' " 
 
 In November the riot wliich. had taken place at Man- 
 chester, and the severe measures to which the magistrates 
 of that city had resorted, were brought before Parliament. 
 
 TO J. J. GURNEY, KSQ 
 
 " November 25, 1819. 
 
 " I must give you a line to tell you how things have gone on in 
 the House. We have had a wonderful debate ; really it has raised 
 my idea of the capacity and ingenuity of the human mind. All the 
 leaders spoke, and almost aU outdid themselves. But Burdett stands 
 first ; his speech was absolutely the finest, and the clearest, and the 
 fairest display of masterly understanding that ever I heard; and 
 with shame I ought to confess it, he did not utter a sentence to 
 which I could not agree. Canning was second ; if there be any dif- 
 ference between eloquence and sense, this was the difference between 
 him and Burdett. He was exquisitely eloquent, and kept the tide 
 of reason and argument, irony, joke, invective, and declamation flow- 
 ing, without abatement, for nearly three hours. Plunkett was third; 
 he took hold of poor Mackintosh's argument, and griped it to death ; 
 ingenious, subtle, yet clear and bold, and putting with the most 
 logical distinctness to the House the errors of his antagonist. Next 
 came Brougham — and what do you think of a debate in which the 
 fourth man could keep alive the attention of the House from three 
 to five in the morning, after a twelve houi-s' debate. Now, what 
 was the impression made on my mind ? you will ask. First, I voted 
 with ministers, because I cannot bring myself to subject the Man- 
 chester magistrates to a parliamentary inquiiy; but nothing has 
 shaken my convictions that the magistrates, ministers, and all, have 
 di)ne exceedingly wrong. I am clear I voted right ; and, indeed, I 
 never need have any doubts when I vote with ministers, the bias 
 being on the other side. Did the debate inflame my ambition? 
 Why, in one sense, it did. It convinced me that I have the oppor- 
 tunity of being a competitor on the greatest arena that ever existed ; 
 but it also taught me that success in such a theatre is only for tliose 
 who will devote their lives to it. Pei-ha]->s you will admire the pre- 
 sumption which entertains even the possibility of success. I am, I 
 believe, rather absurd; but I hold a doctrine to which I owe, not 
 much, indeed, but all the little success I ever had, — viz., that with 
 ordinary talents and extraordinary perseverance all things are at- 
 tainable. And give me ten years in age, ten times my constitution, 
 and oblivion of the truth which paralyses many an exertion of mine, 
 that 'vanity of vanities, all is vanity,' and csiiouially that fame is so, 
 — I Bay, give mo tiicso things, aiul I should not despair of parlia- 
 mentary reputation ; but to one who cannot bear fatigue of mind, 
 who loves sporting bettor than glory, who will not enli.st under the 
 banners of party, — to such a being fame is absolutely forbidden. I 
 am well content ; I cannot expect the commodity for which I will 
 not pay the price. 
 
 " Ho far I 8(;ribl)le(l yesterday, and then I went to the levde 
 
 The rooma were tolerably splendid; but, ujiou the whole, I never
 
 1818, 1819.] ON SELF-DEDICATIOK 49 
 
 was less attracted by anything than courtiership, and would not be 
 obliged to attend regularly for all the ribbons of all the colours of 
 the rainbow. At dinner, afterwards, I had a great deal of conversa- 
 tion with the two Grants, Denman, and the Attorney-General, and 
 then I went home with AVilberforce, and spent a most pleasant even- 
 ing. His family prayers were nothing short of delightful. I hope 
 I shall see him a good deal while I am in town. 
 
 "P.S. — Bootle Wilbraham (who is a Lancaster magistrate) was 
 defending his brethren in the debate, but did it in so low a tone of 
 voice that nobody could hear him ; somebody wliispered about that 
 he was reading the Riot Act." 
 
 The following letter was addressed to Ms sister, Mrs 
 Forster, whose husband was preparing to go to America, 
 on what the Society of Friends term " a religious visit " to 
 tlie members of their community : — 
 
 "Eaelham, 1819. 
 
 "My dear Sistee, — Your letter has been much upon my mind, 
 and has raised a variety of feelings. The first impression was one 
 of much sorrow, that your plans and prospects of home-happiness 
 should be inteiTupted, and for so long a time ; but I must confess, 
 I have been speedily almost reconciled to it ; that is, I have brought 
 it home to my own mind, and have considered, whether it would not 
 really be the greatest of blessings, if by any means my duty would 
 call me to such a sacrifice, and the caU. were not to be disobeyed. 
 After all, it is a noble thing — it is the noblest of all things — to be 
 permitted to be a servant of the Infinite Ruler of the world ; and 
 how low and earthly is that wisdom which could prefer any delights, 
 before the delights of such self -dedication ! We know but few things 
 for certain; but this is one of them — a promise is given to him 
 who leaves father or mother, or wife or children, for Christ's sake. 
 How can I mourn, then, that William should accept the terms of 
 such a promise ? I rejoice that he is counted worthy to suffer for 
 Christ's sake. I have always felt particularly interested with the 
 vision of the man of Macedonia, calling Paul to come over and help 
 them, comparing it with the Epistle to the Philippians. The dis- 
 couragements at first were so great, and yet the Epistle describes 
 such an abundant and happy produce. Who can tell how many may 
 have eternal reason to rejoice at the obedience of the apostle; and who 
 can presume to limit the effect which Providence may please to pro- 
 duce by AVilliam's visit ? We may differ on some points, but not on 
 this — that his call is from above. I am persuaded it has been sought 
 in the right spirit. I believe it is sent in mercy to others — in emi- 
 nent mercy to him and to you ; and I am willing that you should 
 undergo the pains of separation. But, my dear Anna, you must not 
 imagine I am indifferent about this. Let me ask, Have you deter- 
 mined to remain behind ? I do not give an opinion- upon the sub- 
 ject. All I wish to express is, that you must not stay from motives 
 
 of economy Of course, we shall see you before his departure. 
 
 I will hear of nothing else. With love to you both, and not with- 
 out thankfulness that there is something of a missionary spirit among 
 you, I am, your affectionate brother, " T. F. BuxTON."
 
 50 HIS ELECTION FOE WEYMOUTH, [^t. 34, 35. 
 
 CHAPTEK VII. 
 
 1820, 1821. 
 At tte commencement of the year 1820, Mr Buxton tlius 
 enumerates the subjects which he hoped to accomplish in 
 the course of the year : — " First, to assist, to the best of 
 my ability, in Parliament, to amend our criminal code ; 
 and, secondly, to amend our prisons. Thirdly, to obtain 
 a return of the number of widows who burn themselves at 
 their husbands' funeral m India, preparatory to a law pro- 
 hibiting such enormities. Fourthly, to establish a fund 
 for supporting the Sunday schools (on the plan of that at 
 Friar's Mount) in Spitalfields." 
 
 The death of the King, and the consequent prospect of a 
 dissolution of Parliament, occasioned some anxious thoughts. 
 " I have felt some doubt," he says, on the 6th of February, 
 " whether I should stand ; " and he mentions his " eight 
 children," among the reasons against doing so. He adds : — 
 
 " Lord, guide mj- heart and will aright, and lead me to determine 
 for the best ! Oh that I could from this day offer myself a living sac- 
 rifice to the Lord, doing or abstaining, speaking or being silent, spend- 
 ing or forbearing to spend, simjjly because it was the will of God ! 
 
 "Oh that I could thus put off the old man and put on the new 
 man ! I think the time that is past should suffice me to have wrought 
 my own will; and for the future, let me try all things by this 
 standard, ' Is it the will of God ? ' gracious God ! this is what I 
 would be ; but what am I ? Is one hundredth part of my time, 
 talents, money, strength, spent for God ? No ! " 
 
 He determined at length to stand again for Wcpnouth. 
 He was successful, and after announcing his re-election, he 
 proceeds : — " I heartily ho])e I may make some good use of 
 my present privilege, and that some of the oppressed may 
 be less miserable in conscqiicnce." 
 
 Thus fixr Mr Buxton's career had been one of almost 
 unchequercd prosperity — as a member of Parliament ; as a 
 man of business ; as a husband ; as the father of a large 
 aixl promising family, his heart's desires had been fulfilled. 
 J I is public undertakings Avero becoming daily more impor- 
 tant and engrossing, and his home was a scene of unclouded 
 }ia])[)incs3. 
 
 Ills valued friend, the Picv. Charles Simeon, thus writes 
 to liim from Cambridire : —
 
 1820, 1821.] DEATH OF HIS ELDEST SON. 51 
 
 "January 14,1820. 
 " My dear Friend, — Certainly if I should live to visit j^our house 
 again, I shall do it with with no little joy, for I do not expect to see 
 in this world a brighter image of heaven, than I was there privileged 
 to behold. A sweet savour of love remained upon my spirit for a 
 long time after, and I am not sure that it is quite evaporated yet. 
 But I do not know that I shall not thrash you for supporting the 
 Radicals. I look to you, imder God, to be an instrument of great 
 good in the House of Commons ; and I would not that you should 
 subvert the influence which your habits and talents are so calculated 
 
 to command I am no politician; but I feel a regard for you, 
 
 and seem to think that the more I know of you, the more my heart 
 will be knit to you ; so you must bear with this impudent letter, 
 from one who is, with no common affection, yours, 
 
 " Charles Simeon." 
 
 But all this happiness was about to be marred by a rapid 
 succession of calamities. Mr Buxton had been hastily sum- 
 moned back from the election, in consequence of the alarm- 
 ing illness of one of his children. His eldest son, a boy of 
 ten years old, had been sent home from school unwell, but 
 no suspicion of danger was at first excited ; his disorder, 
 however, proved to be inflammatory ; and, in the course of 
 a very few days, he sank under it. His father writes in his 
 journal :^ 
 
 " Thus have we lost our eldest son, the peculiar object of our 
 anxious care ; a boy of great life and animation ; of a most beautiful 
 countenance ; of a most sweet disposition : and, blessed be God, we 
 feel that in the whole event His mercy has been extended to us. 
 We can rejoice and mourn together, — mourn at our loss, and rejoice 
 that, without exposure to the trials and temptations of the world, 
 it has pleased God to take him to Himself. We feel the most 
 certain assurance that he is with God, and we feel persuaded that, 
 if we could but be permitted to see him as he now is, we should 
 never bewail him for another instant." 
 
 His faith was destined to be more severely tried. The 
 younger children, who were already suffering from the 
 hooping-cough, were seized within a few days with the 
 measles. He writes : — 
 
 "Aprils. 
 
 " This week has passed away in great anxiety for the remainder 
 of my flock." 
 
 "Sunday night, April 16. 
 
 " How wonderful are the ways of the Lord ; how sweet His 
 mercies ; how terrible Hia judgments ! The week past has been one 
 of the most acute anxiety. Oh ! when one affliction flows in upon 
 us after another, may they bxirst the bonds by which we are tied to 
 earth, may they direct ua heavenward, and may we, having our trea-
 
 52 DEEP AFFLICTIONS. [JEr. 34, 35, 
 
 sures in heaven, have our hearts there also I have just been 
 
 out walking, viewing this splendid starry night ; what immeasurable 
 mightiness does the firmament display ! And when we consider 
 that for all these innumerable worlds there is one Ai'biter, one Sove- 
 reign Director, can we say aught else than ' Thy will be done ? ' 
 Cannot He who rules the universe decide what is best for the chil- 
 dren He has lent me ? May I yield to that will ! " 
 
 The sacrifice was required from liim, for in less than five 
 •weeks after the death of his son, it pleased God also to take 
 the three infant daughters whose illness had excited such 
 deep feeling. On the death of the eldest, a chUd of four 
 years old, he writes : — 
 
 " ' Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.' I had much 
 desired her life, but willingly do I resign her into the hands of the 
 Lord, praying Him that He would mercifully make her death the 
 means of turning me more nearly to the Lord. 
 
 " Thus, in little more than a month," he adds, "have we lost the 
 darlings and delights of our life ; but they are in peace : and, for 
 ourselves, we know that this affliction may redound to our eternal 
 
 benefit, if we receive it aright How are all our most choice 
 
 and comely blossoms cut off ; how naked do we appear, how stripped 
 of our treasures ! Oh, my God, my God ! Be Thou our Consoler, 
 and comfort us, not with the joys of this world, but with faith, love, 
 obedience, patience, and resignation."* 
 
 " TuNBRiDGE Wells, May 14, 1820. 
 
 " We came here, with the fragments of our family, on Wednesday 
 last, in hopes that the retirement and peace of this place may recruit 
 the strengtii of my beloved wife. May God give her every blessing; 
 and, for myself, my prayer is that this trial may not pass away, but 
 may leave a durable impression." 
 
 The diary from which this melancholy narrative has been 
 drawn closes at this date ; and, of the summer, which was 
 chiefly spent at Tunbridge Wells, there are few notices, 
 except that before mentioned of the passing of the Prison 
 Discipline Bill, and an allusion, on the 8th of June, to the 
 Queen's proposed trial: — 
 
 " Last night came on in the House the great events of the Queen, 
 and I think I never spent an evening to so much advantage as this 
 last. The case is this; we are going into an iuquirj' which will lay 
 bare the most disgiaceful scenes in the royal family iin both sides; 
 tlic probable eiiiisetiucnco will bo the iuipeaclunciit of the Queen. 
 The nation will bo divided, and all the lower orders will be on her 
 Bide ; and the certain consequences, disturbances, riots, and blood- 
 shed. 
 
 " These considerations pressed much on my mind, and I called 
 
 • "Elicn I Eliou 1" was tho aitnplo epitaph Lo placed upon the tomb of his 
 four chilUrcn.
 
 1820,1821.] PRISCILLA GURNEY. 53 
 
 Wilberforce out of the House, and persuaded him to move for a 
 delay of two days, for the purpose of preventiug the necessitj' for 
 such pauiful and disgi-aceful disclosures, which motion I seconded, 
 in a short, warm, decided, and well-applauded speech; and the 
 whole House were so much with us, that the Ministers were obliged 
 to give way. I have been most warmly thanked by both sides. 
 Brougham said, ' You may live fifty years, and do good every day, 
 but you will never do as much as you have done this night.' In 
 short, the effort succeeded beyond expectation, and I am glad that 
 I was able to persuade Wilberforce to take so decisive a step. He 
 wavered a good deal, but when he spoke, he spoke most beautifully, 
 and at considerable length : his fine fancy played upon the subject." 
 
 In tlie autumn of 1820, Mr Buxton, who was no longer 
 obliged to give much attention to the Brewery, and greatly- 
 needed rest and change, gave up his house at Hampstead, 
 and became a resident, permanently as it proved, in the 
 neighbourhood of Cromer. 
 
 At first he resided at Cromer Hall, an old seat of the 
 Wmdham family, which no longer exists, having many 
 years ago been pulled down and replaced by a modern 
 edifice. It was situated about a quarter of a mile from 
 the sea, but sheltered from the north winds by closely 
 surrounding hills and woods ; and, with its old buttresses, 
 gables, and porches, clothed with roses and jessamine, and 
 its formal lawn, where the pheasants came down to feed, 
 had a peculiar character of picturesque simplicity. The 
 interior corresponded with its external appearance, and had 
 little of the regularity of modern buildings ; one attic- 
 chamber was walled up, with no entrance save through the 
 window, and, at different times, large pits were discovered 
 under the floor, or in the thickness of the walls, vised, it 
 was supposed, in old times, by the smiigglers of the coast. 
 
 Upon first settling at Cromer Hall he received under his 
 roof ]\Irs Buxton's youngest sister, Priscilla Gurney, who 
 was then in an advanced stage of consumption, under which 
 she sank in March 1821. 
 
 This lady was a minister in the Society of Friends, like 
 her sister Mrs Fry, whom she greatly resembled, in uniting 
 uncommon resolution and originality of character, with the 
 most winning gentleness of demeanour. Mr Buxton had 
 the highest opinion of her judgment and piety; and she 
 exercised, as we shall see, a peculiar influence upon his 
 subsequent career. He thus describes her : —
 
 54 PRISCILLA GURNEY. [.Et. 34, 35. 
 
 " .... I never knew an individual who was less one of the mul- 
 titude than Priscilla Gurney. In her person, her manners, her views, 
 there was nothing which was not the very reverse of commonplace. 
 There was an air of peace about her, which was irresistible in re- 
 ducing all with whom she conversed under her gentle influence. 
 This was the effect on strangers ; and in no degree was it abated by 
 the closest intimacy : something there was, undoubtedly, in the 
 beauty of her countenance, and in the extreme delicacy which con- 
 stituted that beauty ; in a complexion perfectly clear ; in the sim- 
 plicity and absence of all decoration but that of the most refined 
 neatness, which, altogether, conveyed to every one's mind the strong- 
 est conception of purity. And these attractions of person were 
 aided by manners which nicely corresponded No less re- 
 markable were the powers of her mind. I have seldom known a 
 person of such sterling ability ; and it is impossible to mention these 
 mental powers, without adverting to that great, and, in my estima- 
 tion, that astonishing display of them, which was afforded by her 
 miuistry. I have listened to many eminent preachers, and many 
 speakers also, but I deem her as perfect a speaker as I ever heard. 
 The tone of her voice, her beauty, the singular clearness of her con- 
 ception, and, above all, her own strong conviction that she was 
 urging the truth, and truth of the utmost importance — the whole 
 constituted a species of ministry, which no one could hear, and 
 which I am persuaded no one ever did hear, without a deep im- 
 pression." 
 
 Whilst attending from time to time his duties in London, 
 he thus writes to Mrs Buxton, who had remained at Cromer 
 Hall to nurse her sister : — 
 
 "London, January 13, 1821. 
 
 " I wrote a hne yesterday just to mention my safe arrival, and 
 to-day I have hardly time for more, for a flood of business has over- 
 taken me. I have an engagement already for every day this week, 
 and next week I shall have to bring forward a motion in the House, 
 which will require some time and thought ; but it is the weight 
 and multitude of business which makes me happy. At Earlham I 
 read a piece of Palcy's philosophy, which I found admirable. I was 
 quite delighted with the vigour of thought which runs through it, 
 and it gave me a train of thought which lasted almost to Ipswich. 
 .... I have felt very much leaving you all ; but though I should 
 enjoy being with you, I could stay no longer from parliament with 
 an easy mind, so we must bo satisfied. 
 
 " As for dearest Priscilla, I feel her given to the Lord, and I am 
 sure that He is about her bed, and that He loves her, and, that 
 whatsoever shall happen to her, will bo sent in peculiar tenderness ; 
 and in thcso certain truths I commit her to Him without fear or 
 repining. She is inexpressibly dear to my inmost soul, but I look 
 
 upon her as a saint already in the hands of the Lord I have 
 
 tried to pray for lier, but I cannot. My jirayers turn into praises, 
 and my mourning into joy. And, after all, if wo lose her, what is 
 it? Let our thoughts range through etcruity, dropping only tha
 
 1820, 1821.] LETTERS. 55 
 
 trifle of the next fifty years, and what can we desire beyond her 
 present state ? We are sure that her God, whom she served in her 
 strength, protects, cherishes, and will guard her from evil in her 
 sickness. If she is destined to dwell in His presence for evermore, 
 will not this satisfy those who love her dearly ? I say again, I am 
 satisfied and joyful in her state, and can with unbounded and satis- 
 fied confidence commit her to the Lord, and shall be almost glad if 
 you tell her I send no message of hope or fear, neither can I hope 
 or fear." 
 
 "Hampstead, January 27. 
 " I have had my hands brimful of business this last week, but it 
 has not fatigued me as parliamentary business does; there is no 
 stress on the mind, no anxiety, no apprehension that a good cause 
 may suffer by my inattention or incapacity, which is wearisome in 
 Parliament. We had a pleasant dinner j)arty at the Duke of Glou- 
 cester's yesterday. I had spent the morning with Wilberforce, who 
 was quite delightful. I begin to think, that of all men he is the 
 most subjected and controlled, and invariably in the right frame of 
 temper. I say ' begin,' because he is beginning to share the seat in 
 
 my mind which Joseph has so long occupied I shall finish 
 
 my examination of the boys when I am at Cromer, so let Miss 
 
 tremble. TeU her from me, that I look with unmixed satisfaction 
 to her superintendence of their education; and I am sure, if she 
 give them vigour of mind—' a mind not to be changed,' a determi- 
 nation to accomplish their object by dint of resolution, and an un- 
 conquerable fixed will to succeed — she will give them what is worth 
 more than wealth, or rank, or anything else, except one thing, which 
 if they have not, I trust they never will have this energy, because 
 this energy is a great instrument, and, if ill employed, a great in- 
 strument of evil." 
 
 TO ONE OF niS LITTLE BOYS. 
 
 "January 28. 
 " I have had a fine gallop this morning on your capital horse 
 Radical. I ride him and Abraham every day, and always as fast 
 as they can go, because I have so much to do that I cannot behave 
 like little Lord Linger. I hope that when you are a man, you will be 
 very industrious and do all the good you can. There are a great 
 many poor people who are very sick, and yet have no money to buy 
 food, or clothes, or physic ; and there are many more so ignorant that 
 they never heard of the Bible, and think they do very right when 
 they roast and eat their enemies ! If you think this is very right, 
 and that it is kind to stick a man on a spit and dress him like a pig, 
 why, don't try to prevent it ! But if you think it very wrong, then 
 be sure you do all you can to stop it. Do you know, one good 
 industrious man may do a great deal ; and, if you wish to be of that 
 sort, you must begin by being diligent now. But there is a much 
 more important thing than even being diligent, that is, being good. 
 I don't much like to bring you a horn, because I am sure you will 
 disturb the hen-pheasants, and so we shall have no young ones." 
 
 Mr Buxton belonged, it has been said above, to the 
 
 F
 
 56 THE AFEICAN INSTITUTION". [^t. 34, 35. 
 
 African Institution, tlie society set on foot by Mr Wilber- 
 force and liis coadjutors, in order to watcli over the law, 
 whicli with so much difficulty had been obtained in 1807, 
 abolishing the trade in slaves between Africa and our 
 colonies. Having in a great measure effected this purpose, 
 and secured the ostensible acquiescence of France, Portugal, 
 and other nations, in the same measure, the institution had 
 at length sunk into a state of comparative inactivity. 
 
 TO MES BUXTON. 
 
 " Jamiary 30. 
 
 " I had been engaged to go down to Coggeshall yesterday, shoot 
 there to-day, and return to-morrow night ; happily, as I think, I got 
 notice of the meeting of the African Institution for to-day, so I put 
 off my shooting excursion. In the course of the meeting an oppor- 
 tunity occurred, which I could not pass over, of declaring my mind, 
 as to the inactivity and ineffectiveness of the society. I told them 
 that it was certain we once had the confidence of the country ; and 
 it was now certain the public knew little and cared little on the sub- 
 ject. I have often spoken plainly and been condemned by others ; 
 a few times I have done so and blamed myself, but in this instance 
 I really felt, and still feel, exceedingly grateful that I did not shrink 
 from the duty. My remonstrance was well received, and a meeting 
 was appointed for Saturday next, at Lord Lansdowne's, of all the 
 members of both Houses interested in the subject, and perhaps it 
 may be a means of great good. I tell aU this long story for my dear 
 Priscilla, who exhorted me not to neglect this, the first and most 
 melancholy of all subjects. I thoroughly enjoj-ed the dear boys' 
 letters, but I can't think that I shall find they know so much as 
 they talk about when I get home. My hands are rather full : Thurs- 
 day, the Brewery; Friday, Cape of Good Hope Slave Trade; Satur- 
 day, Lord Lansdowne's; Monday, Prison Bill; Tuesday, Brougham's 
 Bill on Education ; Wednesday, I make a speech to the children in 
 Spitalfields; Thm-sday, Brewery and Mail Coach; Friday, home!" 
 
 " February 3. 
 
 " I was quite astonished at Wilberforce yesterday. I had not 
 seen him since my vehement reprobation of the African Institution. 
 Yesterday he was warm to excess; over and over again he thanked me 
 for the boldness and openness of my i-eniarks, and said they had 
 penetrated deeply into his heart." 
 
 A few days later he speaks of " working very, very hard." 
 In addition to the questions of Prison Discipline, Cruninal 
 Law, and the Slave Trade, in which he took so much interest, 
 his attention had been drawn, cliielly through the facts laid 
 before him by the llev. Mr Peggs, a Baptist missionary 
 just returned from India, to the subject of the self-immo- 
 lation of Hindoo widows. Having collected a large mass
 
 1821, 1822.] SPEECH ON CRIMINAL LAW. 57 
 
 of information, he determined to bring it before Par- 
 liament ; and, in the course of the session, he made two 
 motions on the subject. In his speech on the second 
 occasion he proved that, within the last four years, in the 
 residency of Fort William alone, 2366 widows had been 
 committed to the flames ! — that the French, Dutch, and 
 other powers in India had abolished the custom in their 
 territories, while the stigma of its continuance still rested 
 on the British Government ; and he shewed that, so far 
 from being voluntary, this cruel martyrdom was generally 
 forced upon the unhappy widow, either by superstitious 
 priests or interested relations. 
 
 Several years, however, elapsed before anything of import- 
 ance was accomplished in this matter, the question being 
 one which fell within the province of the India House, 
 rather than of the House of Commons. 
 
 The committee which had been appointed in the pre- 
 ceding year to inquire into the w^orking of the Criminal 
 Laws, had now closed its labours, and Sir James Mackin- 
 tosh's bill for the abrogation of the punishment of death, in 
 cases of forgery, arose from its report. A speech of Mr 
 Buxton's upon this bill excited great notice at the time. 
 
 It was thus summed up at its conclusion ; — 
 
 "My argument, then, is this. Our system is before us. The 
 price we pay for our system is — the loss of public opinion, and the 
 aid (the best, the cheapest, and the most constitutional) which the 
 law gathers from the concurrence of public opinion ; the necessity 
 of doing that by spies, informers, and blood-money, which were 
 better done without them ; the annual liberation of multitudes of 
 criminals ; the annual perpetration of multitudes of crimes; perjury; 
 and the utter abandonment of the first of your duties, the first of 
 your interests, and the greatest of all charities — the prevention of 
 crime. This is what you pay. And for what ? For a system, which 
 has against it a multitude of divines, moralists, statesmen, lawyers — 
 an unrivalled phalanx of the wise and good ; a system, which has 
 against it the stiU stronger authority of practical men, who di-aw their 
 conclusions from real life ; a system, which has against it the still 
 stronger authority of the Common Law of England ; which, if wrong 
 now, is wrong for the first time ; a system, which has against it the 
 etill stronger authority of experience and experiment, in England, on 
 the one hand — in Tuscany, in America, and elsewhere, on the other ; 
 and, finally, a system, which in its spirit and its temper is against 
 the temper and the spirit of that mild and merciful religion, which 
 ' desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn 
 from his wickedness and live ! ' "
 
 58 SLAVERY. [^T. 35, 36. 
 
 Numerous were the expressions of approbation wliicli this 
 speech called forth. Sir James Mackintosh said in the 
 House, that it was " the most powerful appeal that he had 
 ever had the good fortune to hear within the walls of Parha- 
 ment." And in a subsequent debate Mr (now Lord) Den- 
 man remarked, that "more of wisdom, more of benevolence, 
 more of practical demonstration he had never heard in the 
 course of his parliamentary career, than was contained in 
 the energetic speech of his honourable friend." 
 
 When, however, the division took place on the question, 
 "That the bill for the mitigation of the punishment of 
 death for forgery do pass," the Ayes were 115, and the 
 Noes 121 ; and the bill was consequently lost ! 
 
 On the 5th of June 1822, Sir James Mackintosh again 
 brought forward the question, and was again seconded by 
 Mr Buxton. They succeeded in carrj'ing, by a majority of 
 sixteen, the motion, " That the House wiU in the next session 
 consider the means of increasing the efficacy of the criminal 
 law, by abating the rigour of its punishments." 
 
 In 1823, however, the resolutions proposed by Su- James 
 Mackintosh were rejected, and he and his friends were still 
 struggling against a superior force, when in 1826, Mr Peel, 
 on his accession to office, undertook the momentous task of 
 remodelling the whole penal code, by which, at the period 
 when first Samuel Romilly, and afterwards Sir James Mack- 
 intosh and Mr Buxton brought the subject forward, two 
 hundred and thirty offences were punishable with death. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SLA.VERY. 1821-1823. 
 
 The evening after Mr Buxton had delivered his speech on 
 criiiiiiial law, he received the following letter from Mr 
 WUbcrforce : — 
 
 " London, May 24, 1821. 
 " My DEATi Buxton,— It is now more than tlurty-three years since, 
 after having given notice in the House of Cunnnons that I bhould 
 bring forward, for tlie first time, tlie question concerning the Slave 
 Trade, it pleased Ood to visit mo with a severe indisposition, by 
 which, indeed, I was so exhanstcd, that the ablest ])hysician in Lon- 
 don of that day declared that I had not stamina to last above a very
 
 1821-1823.] SUCCEEDS MR WILBERFORCE. 59 
 
 few weeks. On this I went to Mr Pitt, and begged of him a pro- 
 mise, which he kindly and readily gave me, to take upon himself the 
 conduct of that great cause. 
 
 " I thank God I am now free from any indisposition ; but from 
 my time of life, and much more from the state of my constitution, 
 and my inability to bear inclemencies of weather, and irregularities, 
 which close attendance on the House of Commons often requires, I 
 am reminded, but too intelligibly, of my being in such a state that 
 I ought not to look confidently to my being able to carry through 
 any business of importance in the House of Commons. 
 
 " Now for many, many years I have been longing to bring forward 
 that great subject, the condition of the negro slaves in our Trans- 
 atlantic colonies, and the best means of providing for their moral 
 and social improvement, and ultimately for their advancement to 
 the rank of a free peasantry — a cause this, recommended to me, or 
 rather enforced on me, by every consideration of religion, justice, 
 and humanity. 
 
 " Under this impression, I have been waiting, with no little solici- 
 tude, for a proper time and suitable circumstances of the country, 
 for introducing this great business ; and, latterly, for some member 
 of Parliament, who, if I were to retire or to be laid by, would be an 
 eligible leader in this holy enterprise. 
 
 " I have for some time been viewing you in this connexion ; and 
 after what passed last night, I can no longer forbear resorting to you, 
 as I formerly did to Pitt, and earnestly conjuring you to take most 
 seriously into consideration the expediency of your devoting your- 
 self to this Messed service, so far as will be consistent with the due 
 discharge of the obligations you have already contracted, and in part 
 so admirably fulfilled, to war against the abuses of our criminal law, 
 both in its structure and its administration. Let me, then, entreat 
 you to form an alliance with me, that may truly be termed holy, and 
 if I should be unable to commence the war (certainly not to be de- 
 clared this session) ; and still more, if, when commenced, I should 
 (as certainly would, I fear, be the case) be unable to finish it, do I 
 entreat that you would continue to prosecute it. Your assurance to 
 this effect would give me the greatest pleasure — pleasure is a bad 
 term — let me rather say peace and consolation ; for alas, my friend, 
 I feel but too deeply, how little I have been duly assiduous and 
 faithful in employing the talents committed to my stewardship ; and 
 in forming a partnership of this sort with you, I cannot doubt that 
 I should be doing an act highly pleasing to God, and beneficial to 
 my fellow-creatures. Both my head and heart are quite full to over- 
 flowing, but I must conclude. My dear friend, may it please God to 
 bless you, both in your public and private course. If it be His will, 
 may He render you an instrument of extensive usefulness; but above 
 all, may He give you the disposition to say at all times, ' Lord, what 
 wouldest thou have me to do, or to suffer ? ' looking to Him, through 
 Christ, for wisdom and strength. And while active in business and 
 fervent in spirit upon earth, may you have your conversation in 
 heaven, and your affections set on things above. There may we at 
 last meet, together with all we most love, and spend an eternity of
 
 60 "SLAVERY"— "SLAVE TRADE." [iEi. 35-37. 
 
 holiness and happiness complete, and unassailable. — Ever affection- 
 ately yours, W. Wilberforce." 
 
 Many causes had been concurring to prepare Mr Buxton 
 for entering upon this " holy enterprise." His attention 
 had, at an early period, been drawn, though slightly, to the 
 questions of Slavery and the Slave Trade. In one of his 
 private memoranda he enumerates, among the causes for 
 thankfulness, "the strong impression on my mother's mind, 
 transfused into mine in very early life, of the iniquity of 
 Slavery and the Slave Trade ; " and he notices a remark 
 which she often made, " while we continue to commit such 
 a sin, how can we ask forgiveness of our sins 1 " He men- 
 tions also, that he used to ridicule his eldest sister for re- 
 fusing to eat slave-grown sugar; "but," he adds, "her 
 doing so made me think. Singular, too, that my first speech 
 on entering college was upon the Slave Trade, and my first 
 speech on entering life was at the Tower Hamlets, on the 
 same subject." 
 
 We have seen that he had become an active member of 
 the African Institution ; and although that body devoted 
 its attention to the Slave Trade alone, and did not take up 
 the kindred question of Slavery, yet his connexion with it 
 no doubt contributed to turn his mind to the varied suffer- 
 ings of the negro race. 
 
 The reader need scarcely be reminded, that the importa- 
 tion of fresh negroes from Africa to our colonies had been 
 declared illegal in 1807, after a twenty years' stiaiggle on 
 the part of Mr Wilberforce, Mr Stephen, Mr Clarkson, and 
 their distinguished coadjutors ; and England had no sooner 
 abolished her own trade, than with characteristic energy she 
 strove to obtain, by persuasion or by purchase, a similar 
 measure from the other European powers. Whilst, how- 
 ever, the British Slave Trade had been abolished, British 
 Slavery remained. Though no fresh negroes could now 
 be introduced into our colonies, yet those who had been 
 already imported were still held in bondage. It is singular 
 how often the Slave Trade is confounded with Slavery, 
 oven in quarters where such a blunder would be least ex- 
 pected. 
 
 Tlicre were various reasons which prevented those who 
 had ellccted the abolition of the Slave Trade from attempt-
 
 1822.] PREVIOUS IMPEESSIONS. 61 
 
 ing also the emancipation of tlie Slaves ; * but we see, in 
 Mr Wilberforce's letter, that the latter was a subject which 
 constantly weighed upon his mind, and filled him with 
 painful solicitude. 
 
 "When Mr Buxton first entered Parliament, his attention 
 was drawn to this question by a letter from his brother-in- 
 law. My William Forster, who, after describing the interest 
 taken by Mr Buxton's friends in his efforts for the improve- 
 ment of prison discipline, expresses their earnest desire that 
 he would " take up another most important and extensive 
 question, the state of Africa, and of the slave population in 
 the West Indies." "The attention and exertions of the 
 wise and good," proceeds Mr Forster, " have been directed, 
 and, through the Divine blessing, not without much suc- 
 cess, towards staying the progress of evil, in the abolition 
 of the Slave Trade ; but now it is certainly time to turn 
 the mind of the British public towards the situation of 
 those in actual slavery." 
 
 Another circumstance, to which Mr Buxton often referred, 
 had prepared his mind for accepting the proffered advocacy 
 of the anti-slavery cause. He thus mentions it in a letter, 
 dated October 22, 1821 :— 
 
 " Two or three days before Priscilla Gumey died, she sent for me, 
 as desiring to speak to me about something of importance. The 
 moment she began to speak she was seized with a convulsion of 
 coughing, which continued for a long time, racking her feeble frame. 
 She still seemed determined to jDersevere, but, at length, finding all 
 strength exhausted, she pressed my hand and said, ' The poor, dear 
 slaves ! ' I could not but understand her meaning, for during her 
 illness she had repeatedly urged me to make their cause and condi- 
 tion the first object of my life, feehng nothing so heavy on her heart 
 as their sufferings." 
 
 It was not, however, till after long and mature delibera- 
 tion, that he accepted the weighty charge involved in Mr 
 Wilberforce's proposal. Indeed, he does not aj^pear to 
 have fidly resolved upon undertaking it till a year and a 
 half after the receipt of Mr Wilberforce's letter; but he 
 sjDent the interval, as far as his other avocations woiild 
 permit him, in a close study of the question in all its bear- 
 ings. In this he was materially assisted by the present of 
 a large collection of books connected with the subject from 
 
 * lu 1S07, Earl Percy (aftei-wards Duke of Northumberland) proposed the 
 emancipation of the negro children, but without effect.
 
 62 STUDIES THE SUBJECT. [^t. 36. 
 
 Mr Hoare, one of the earliest members of the African 
 Institution. 
 
 Many of his other friends encouraged him to enter upon 
 this arduous undertaking, especially Mr Samuel and !Mr 
 Joseph John Gurney ; from whom, as from Mr Samuel 
 Hoare, he received unremitting assistance throughout tl^e 
 contest against slavery. 
 
 What chiefly led him to hesitate in adopting this ques- 
 tion as his own, was the fear that the discussion of it in 
 England might lead to a servile insurrection in the "West 
 Indies. He deeply felt the weight of this responsibility, 
 and it was the subject of long and anxious thought. " If," 
 said he, " a servile war should break out, and 50,000 perish, 
 how should I like that 1 " But even this extreme supposi- 
 tion he met by the consideration, " If I had two sons, I 
 would rather choose to have one free and one dead, than 
 both living enslaved." In his first anti-slavery speech he 
 enters at length into this difiiculty, and mentions some of 
 the considerations which had removed it from his mind ; 
 shewing how often insurrections had been foretold by the 
 West Indians, and that their predictions had never been 
 fulfilled ; and further, that even were this fear well 
 grounded, the English Government ought not to be terri- 
 fied by it from examining into the evil in question. 
 
 He appears to have arrived at his final decision in the 
 autumn of 1822; in the course of which Mr Wilbcrforce 
 and Mr ]\Iacaulay visited Cromer Hall, for the purpose of 
 discussing the question with him, and also with Dr Lush- 
 ington and Lord Sufiield. Then was draAvii the first out- 
 line of those plans in which each, from this time, took his 
 respective and important share. 
 
 Mr Wilberforce writes after leaving Cromer : — 
 
 " October 5, 1822. 
 
 " My Dear Buxton, — We brought much away from Cromer Hall, 
 but we left there, as I have just discovered, O'Meara's 'Voice from 
 St Helena.' My dear friend, never I believe, while I remember 
 anything, shall 1 furget the truly friendly reception we experienced 
 under your hospitaVilo roof. I love to muse about you all, and form 
 suitable wishes ior the comfort and good of each member of your 
 happy circle — for a liapjjy circle it is — and surely there is nothing 
 in the world half so delightful as mutual confidence, affection, and 
 sympathy — to feel esteem as well as goodwill towards every hum.an 
 being around you, not only in your own house, but in the social
 
 1823.] DELIBERATIONS. 63 
 
 circle that surrounds your dwelling, and to be conscious that every 
 other being is glowing with the same esteem and love towards you. 
 I hope it is not profane to say, that when associated with heavenly 
 aspirations and relations, such a state is a sort of httle heaven upon 
 earth. My dear friend, never shall I direct henceforth to Cromer 
 Hall, without a number of delightful associations. God bless you 
 all — and so I trust He will. It is quite refreshing in such a world 
 as thisj to think what a globule of friendship has been accumulated 
 at Cromer from different little drops sprinkled over the sea-side. 
 Give my kind remembrances to Mrs Buxton, Priscilla, the Hoares, 
 Mrs Upcher, and indeed to all friends ; to Mr and Mrs J. Gumey, 
 and my old friend Mr Hoare ; to the Lushingtons and Lord Suf- 
 field, whom I hope to know better. Meanwhile, I am ever affec- 
 tionately yours, " W. Wilberforce." 
 
 A short time afterwards, Mr Wilberforce again wrote, to 
 request that he would visit him at Marden Park, to arrange 
 their plan of operations for the ensuing session. 
 
 Mr Macaulay and Mr Buxton arrived at Marden Park 
 on the 8th of January ; and (in the words of the biographers 
 of Mr Wilberforce), " long and deep were their deliberations, 
 how best to shape those measures which were to change 
 the structure of society throughout the Western World." 
 
 Anti-slavery operations were now commenced with vigour, 
 and for some tim.e all went on well. Dr Lushington, Lord 
 Suffield, and several others, who had taken a prominent 
 part in the reformation of prison discipline, now threw all 
 their energies into this new undertaking. Early in March, 
 Mr Wilberforce published his well-known "Appeal on 
 Behalf of the Slaves." At about the same time, the Anti- 
 Slavery Society was formed, (Mr Buxton being appointed a 
 vice-president,) and the committee engaged warmly in the 
 task of collecting evidence and spreading information 
 through the country. Public feeling was soon roused into 
 activity, and petitions began to flow in ; the lead was taken 
 by the Society of Friends, and it \va.s determined that the 
 presentation of their appeal by the hands of Mr Wilberforce, 
 should be the opening of the parliamentary campaign. He 
 introduced it by saying that a similar petition which he 
 had had the honour of presenting nearly thirty years before, 
 had been the first effort against the kindred iniquity of the 
 Slave Trade, and that, in presenting this one, " he con- 
 sidered that the first stone was laid of an edifice which 
 would stand at some future period, an ornament to the land."
 
 64 PREPARATORY MEASURES. [^t. 37. 
 
 Mr Canning asked whether it was his intention to found 
 any motion upon it 1 Mr Wilberforce said, " It was not, 
 but that such was the intention of an esteemed friend of 
 his." 
 
 Mr Buxton then gave notice that on the 15th of May 
 " he would submit a motion, that the House should take 
 into consideration the state of slavery in the British colo- 
 nies." 
 
 On that day he wrote to Mrs Upcher : — 
 
 " In five minutes I start for the House. I hope to begm at five 
 o'clock. I am in good health, in excellent spirits, with a noble 
 cause, and ■without a fear. If I am only given a nimble tongue, we 
 shall do." 
 
 This was the first debate on the subject of Negro Slavery. 
 Mr Buxton began by mo%'ing a resolution, " That the state 
 of slavery is repugnant to the prhiciples of the British 
 constitution and of the Christian rehgion ; and that it 
 ought to be gradually abolished throughout the British 
 colonies, with as much expedition as may be found con- 
 sistent with a due regard to the weUbeing of the parties 
 concerned." 
 
 In his opening speech he plainly declared — " The object 
 at which we aim is the extinction of slaver?/ — nothing less 
 than the extinction of slavery — in nothing less than the 
 whole of the British dominions : not, however, the rapid 
 termination of that state ; not the sudden emancipation of 
 the negro ; but such preparatory steps, such measures of 
 ])recaution, as, by slow degrees, and in a course of years — 
 first fitting and qualifying the slaves for the enjoyment of 
 freedom — shall gently conduct us to the anuiJiilation of 
 slavery." 
 
 When we observe these words, and the propositions em- 
 bodied in Mr Buxton's letter to Earl Bathurst, we cannot 
 help feeling astonished that the Abolitionists should have 
 been so long and so severely blamed, for having rashly set 
 the slaves free before they had fitted them for freedom ; 
 whereas, it Avas the Abolitionists who desii'ed to approach 
 emancipation by a long series of j)rci)aratory measures. It 
 was the i)lanters, as the sequel will prove, who rejected 
 these preparatory measures, because they were meant to 
 pave the way to ultimate emancipation.
 
 1823.] THE PLANTERS' RIGHTS. 65 
 
 The plan unfolded in Mr Buxton's speech exactly corre- 
 sponded with that contained in his letter to Mr Wilmot 
 Horton ; but he especially urged the importance of emanci- 
 pating all the children of the slaves ; pointing out how 
 surely, yet silently, the curse of slavery would thus die away. 
 He proved that this had been done in other countries, without 
 that noise and tumult with which his opponents predicted 
 that it would be attended. This change was, in fact, at 
 that very time, silently proceeding in Ceylon, Bencoolen, 
 and St Helena. 
 
 "'Now one word," he said, "as to the right of the master. There 
 are persons whose notions of justice are so confused and confounded 
 by slavery, as to suppose that the planter has something like an 
 honest title to the person of the slave. We have been so long ac- 
 customed to talk of ' my slave,' and ' your slave,' and what he will 
 fetch, if sold, that we are apt to imagine that he is really yours or 
 mine, and that we have a substantial right to keep or sell him. 
 Then let us just for a moment fathom this right. Here is a certain 
 valuable commodity, and here are two claimants for it — a white 
 man and a black man. Now, what is the commodity in dispute ? 
 The body of the black man. The white man says, ' it is mine,' and 
 the black man, ' it is mine.' Now, the question is, if every man had 
 his own, to whom would the black body belong ? The claim of the 
 black man is just this — Nature gave it him — he holds it by the grant 
 of God. That compound of bone and muscles is his, by the most 
 irreproachable of all titles — a title which admits not, what every 
 other species of title admits, a suspicion of violence, or fraud, or 
 irregularity. Will any man say he came by his body in an illegal 
 manner. Does any man suspect he played the knave and purloined 
 his limbs ? I do not mean to say that the negro is not a thief — but 
 he must be a very subtle thief indeed, if he stole even so much as 
 his own little finger. 
 
 "At least you will admit this. The negro has a pretty good 
 2inma facie claim to his own person. If any man thinks he has a 
 better — the onus probandi rests with him. Then we come to the 
 claim of the white man. What is the f oimdation of your right ? It 
 shall be the best that can be possibly conceived. You received him 
 from your father — very good. Your father bought him from a 
 neighbouring planter — very good. That planter bought him of a 
 trader in the Kingston Slave Market, and that trader bought him 
 of a man-merchant in Africa. So far you are quite safe ! How did 
 the man-merchant acquire him ? He stole him, he kidnapped him. 
 The very root of your claim is robbery, violence, inconceivable 
 wickedness. If anything on earth was ever produced by evidence, 
 it was proved by the Slave-Trade Committee, that the method of 
 obtaining slaves in Africa was robbery, man-stealing, and murder. 
 Your pure title rests on these sacred foundations. If your slave came 
 direct from Africa, your right to his person is absolutely nothing.
 
 66 MR CANNING'S AMENDMENTS. [JEt. 37. 
 
 But your claim to the child born in Jamaica is (if I may use the 
 expression) less still. The new-bom infant has done, can have done, 
 nothing to forfeit his right to freedom. And to talk about rights, 
 justice, equity, and law as connected with slavery, is downright 
 nonsense. If we had no interest in the case, and we were only 
 speaking of the conduct of another nation, we should all use the 
 same language ; and we should speak of slavery as we now speak of 
 slave-trading — that is, we should call it rank, naked, flagrant, undis- 
 guised injustice. 
 
 " Now, sir, observe the moderation with which we proceed. We 
 say, ' Make no more slaves ; desist from that iniquity ; stop, abstain 
 from an act, in itself as full of guilt, entailing in its consequences as 
 much of misery as any felony you can mention.' We do not say, 
 ' Retrace your steps,' but, ' stop.' We do not say, ' Make reparation 
 for the wrong you have done ; ' but, ' do no more wrong ; go no fur- 
 ther ; complete what you have commenced ; screw from your slaves 
 all that his bones and his muscles will yield you, — only stop there :' 
 and when every slave now living shall have found repose in the 
 grave, then let it be said that the country is satiated with slavery, 
 and has done with it for ever." 
 
 An animated debate ensued, and Mr Canning moved and 
 carried certain amendments to Mr Buxton's resolution ; the 
 most important of which was the insertion of the words, 
 "with a fair and equitable consideration of the interests of 
 private property." Plausible as this addition seemed, the 
 anti-slavery party feared, and, as we shall see, but too 
 justly, that it would afford the West Indians a handle on 
 future occasions ; but the discussion grew warmest when 
 Mr Canning brought forward his plan, that the proposed 
 ameliorations should be suggested to the Colonial Legisla- 
 tures, but should only be enforced in the island of Trinidad, 
 which, being one of the crown colonies, had no legislature 
 of its own ; with the further condition, however, that any 
 uncx[)ccted resistance to the suggestions should be met by 
 autliority. 
 
 Tlie following were the resolutions carried by Mr Can- 
 ning, to which we shall have frequent occasion to refer in 
 detailing the proceedings during the subsequent ten years : — 
 
 1 at, " That it is expedient to adopt effectual and decisive mea- 
 sures for ameliorating the condition of the slave population in his 
 Majesty's colonies. 
 
 2d, " Tliat, tiirough a determined and persevering, but at the 
 name time judicious and temperate enforcement of such measures, 
 this House looks forward to a jirogressive improvement in the char- 
 acter of the slave iiopulation, such as may prepare them for a par-
 
 1823.] MR BUXTON'S REPLY. 67 
 
 ticipation in those civil riglits and privileges which are enjoyed by 
 other classes of his Majesty's subjects. 
 
 3d, " That this House is anxious for the accomplishment of this 
 purpose, at the earliest period that shall be compatible with the 
 wellbeing of the slaves themselves, with the safety of the colonies, 
 and with a fair and equitable consideration of the interests of private 
 proj^erty." 
 
 The debate concluded with a reply from Mr Buxton, 
 which is mentioned by Mr WUbcrfbrce as having been 
 " short, and not sweet, indeed, but excellent." We will 
 give one extract from it. It was in answer to the argu- 
 ment that the danger arose not from slavery itself, but from 
 the discussion of slavery in the House : — 
 
 " What then ? " he exclaimed, " Does the slave require any hint 
 from us that he is a slave, and that slavery is of all conditions the 
 most miserable ? Why, sir, he hears this, he sees it, he feels it, too, 
 in all aroimd him. He sees his harsh, uncompensated labour ; he 
 hears the crack of the whip ; he feels — he writhes under the lash. 
 Does not this betray the secret ? 
 
 ' This is no flattery ; these are counsellors 
 That feelingly persuade him what he is.' 
 
 He sees the mother of his children stripped naked before the gang 
 of male negroes and flogged unmercifully ; he sees his children sent 
 to market, to be sold at the best price they will fetch; he sees in 
 himself not a man, but a thing — by West Indian law a chattel, an 
 implement of husbanchy, a machine to produce sugar, a beast of 
 burden ! And will any man tell me that the negro, with all this 
 staring him in the face, flashing in his eyes, when he rises in the 
 morning and when he goes to bed at night, never dreams that there 
 is injustice in such treatment till he sits himself down to the perusal 
 of an English newspaper, and there to his astonishment discovers 
 that there are enthusiasts in England who from the bottom of their 
 hearts deplore and abhor all negro slavery ? There are such enthu- 
 siasts; I am one of them; and while we breathe we will never 
 abandon the cause till that thing — that chattel — is reinstated in all 
 the privileges of man ! " 
 
 Although the emancipation of children was lost, and even 
 the alleviations of the slaves' condition were not to be com- 
 pulsory, yet this debate was an important step gained ; and 
 Mr Buxton's emphatic words in his opening speech were 
 verified : — " A few minutes ago was commenced that pro- 
 cess which will conclude, though not speedily, in the ex- 
 tinction of slavery throughout the British dominions.'" 
 
 !Mr Buxton had various communications with i\Ir Can- 
 ning after the debate, and especially one long interview, in 
 company with Mr Wilberforce and Mr William Smith. On
 
 68 CIRCULAR SENT TO COLONIES. [^t. 37- 
 
 this important occasion, for wliich. lie had carefully pre- 
 pared, he thoroughly ascertained Mr Canning's opinions on 
 all points connected with the treatment, present and pro- 
 spective, of colonial slaves. He then wrote down what had 
 passed, and submitted the statement to Mr Canning. The 
 document strikingly displays the laborious accuracy and the 
 sturdy determination to verify every pomt of his case, 
 which characterised his conduct throughout the entire con- 
 test. Mr Canning returned the paper with many autograph 
 notes upon it, and ]\Ir Buxton therefore exactly knew what 
 were the ministers' intentions at this period. Neither party, 
 however, were as yet aware of the difficulties of the case. 
 
 In accordance with the resolutions of the House, at the 
 end of May, ckcular letters were addressed by the Govern- 
 ment to the various colonial authorities, recommending them 
 to adopt the following reforms : — 
 
 1. To provide the means of religious instruction and Christian 
 education for the slave population. 
 
 2. To put an end to markets and to labour on the Sunday ; and, 
 instead of Sunday, to allow the negroes equivalent time on other 
 days for the cultivation of their provision gi-ounds. 
 
 3. To protect the slaves by law in the acquisition and possession 
 of property, and in the transmission by bequest or otherwise. 
 
 4. To legalise the marriages of slaves, and to protect them in the 
 enjoyment of their connubial rights. 
 
 5. To prevent the separation of families by sale or otherwise. 
 
 6. To restrain generally the power, and to prevent the abuse, of 
 arbitrary j)unishment at the will of the master. 
 
 7. To abolish the degrading corporal punishment of females. 
 
 8. To admit the testimony of slaves in courts of justice. 
 
 9. To prevent the seizure of slaves detached from the estate or 
 plantation to which they belonged. 
 
 10. To remove all the existing obstructions to manumission, and 
 to gi-ant to the slave the power of redeeming himself and his wife 
 and children at a fair price. 
 
 11. To abolish the use of the driving-whip in the field, either as 
 an emblem of authority, or as a stimulus to labour. 
 
 12. To establish savings' banks for the use of the slaves. 
 
 Surely there was good ground for anticipathig that the 
 Colonial Assemblies would gladly listen to these temperate 
 and salutary suggestions. 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh had not hitherto taken any part in 
 this question ; and Mr Euxton, being extremely anxious to 
 engage his brilliant abilities and benevolent heart in its 
 favour, addressed the following letter to him : —
 
 1823-1826.] LETTER TO SIR J. MACKINTOSH. 69 
 
 "Cromer Hall, Nmemher 30, 1823. 
 "My Dear Sir James, — Youi- letter reached me just as I was 
 leaving town. I much regret that I was thus prevented from talk- 
 ing with you on criminal law and colonial reform. The latter of 
 these very much occupies my mind. I feel that a question of greater 
 magnitude, aflfecting the happiness of a larger number of persons, 
 has seldom been agitated; and I also feel that the crisis has arrived, 
 in which we must either begin to ameliorate the condition of the 
 slaves, and indeed to strike a blow at slavery, or in which slavery 
 will be more firmly established than ever. I am, however, I must 
 confess, alarmed, not at the reproach which is heaped on me, nor at 
 the danger said to be produced in the West Indies by my moti(m. 
 I disregard the former, and utterly disbelieve the latter ; but I am 
 alarmed at the prodigious strength of the West Indian party, and at 
 the inability of the person to whom the cause of seven hundred 
 thousand human beings is committed. How often have I wished, 
 that that good cause were blessed with the full, hearty, unreserved, 
 
 co-operation of yourself If I have to fight the battle without 
 
 such aid, the cause of justice and humanity will undoubtedly suSer 
 from the feebleness of its advocate. With that aid, and with that 
 of Brougham, of whom we are sure, I doubt not that the sons of the 
 present slaves will be raised to a state of villanage, and their graqd- 
 
 sons will be freemen Now I have written this, I am ready to 
 
 tear it to pieces, and to wonder at my own presumption in having 
 written it. It shall, however, go. It is an entreaty for more than 
 half a million of human beings, who cannot supplicate for themselves, 
 and against whom there are many who can canvass and are canvass- 
 ing stoutly." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SLAVERY. 1823-1826. 
 
 The news of Mr Buxton's attack on what the planters con- 
 sidered to be their just rights, and of the acquiescence of 
 the Government in his principles, were received in the 
 West Indies with the most vehement indignation. For 
 some weeks after the arrival of the despatches, not the 
 slightest restraint seems to have been put on the violence 
 of their rage, which drove them to the wildest designs. 
 Thoughts were openly entertained of resisting the innova- 
 tions of the Government by force of arms. It was even 
 proposed to throw off the yoke of the mother country, and 
 place themselves under the protection of America. They 
 could find no language sufficiently bitter to express their 
 rancour ; and the Colonial Legislatures unanimously refused 
 submission to the recommendations of the Government.
 
 70 THE NEGROES REFUSE TO WORK. [^t. 37. 
 
 When the Order in Council reached Demerara, the 
 authorities of the colony, endeavoured to conceal the intelli- 
 gence from the black population. Their precautions were 
 worse than useless ; exaggerated rumours soon spread 
 abroad. The negroes fancied that " the great Iving of 
 England" had set them free, and that the planters had 
 suppressed his edict ; and, under this impression, the slaves 
 on several estates refused to work. Compulsion was re- 
 sorted to — they resisted — and commenced outrages on the 
 property and persons of the whites. Martial law was pro- 
 claimed, and the soldiers called out. 
 
 Destitute alike of organisation, of leaders, and of arms, 
 the slaves were at once reduced to subjection. In perform- 
 ing this duty not one soldier was killed ; but pressed down 
 and running over was the measure of vengeance dealt to the 
 unhappy negroes. 
 
 " It was deemed fitting," said Mr Brougham, "to make tremendous 
 examples of them. Considerably above a hundred fell in the field, 
 where they did not succeed in putting one soldier to death. A num- 
 ber of the prisoners also, it is said, were hastily di'awn out at the 
 close of the alfray and shot. How many in the whole have since 
 perished by sentences of the court does not appear, but by the end 
 of September forty-seven had been executed. A more horrid tale of 
 blood yet remains to be told. Within the short sj^ace of a week ten 
 were torn in pieces by the lash ; some of these had been condemned 
 to six or seven hundi-ed lashes ; five to one thousand each ; of which 
 inhuman torture one had received the whole, and two almost the 
 whole at once." 
 
 The Colonists were not satisfied by the severity vidth 
 which the rebel negroes had been visited. For some time 
 the attention of religious men in England had been drawn 
 to the wretched ignorance and depravity of the lower orders 
 in our colonial islands. Various denominations of Chris- 
 tians had sent out missionaries to instruct them ; and the 
 Independents and Weslcyans had distinguished themselves 
 by their Christian zeal. It was no path of flowers which 
 these missionaries had chosen. The Colonists were violently 
 opposed to change ; and with the usual feelings of despotic 
 masters, they could not endure the idea of allowing their 
 slaves to be educated ; yet, in the face of danger and perse- 
 cution, the missionaries persevered, and many of the negroes 
 were brought to the knowledge of religion. The planters 
 had tried every means to stop this " nuisance ; " and when
 
 1824.] DEATH OF MISSIONARY SMITH. 71 
 
 the rebellion broke out, they resolved to fix it upon the 
 Christian teachers of tlie negroes. 
 
 The particulars of " Smith's case," afterwards so ably 
 treated by Mr Brougham, need not here be dwelt on. 
 Suffice it to say, that he was an Independent missionary ; 
 was tried in a manner not only unjust, but absolutely illegal, 
 before a court-martial of militia officers, and condemned to 
 be hanged ; but his treatment in prison destroyed his pre- 
 viously faUing health, and he died in his dungeon.* 
 
 The news of the ferment among the Colonists, with the 
 rapidly succeeding intelhgence of the revolt of the negroes, 
 of their overthrow, and of the severities inflicted upon them 
 and upon their teachers, soon reached England. The dis- 
 appointment and grief of the leading members of the anti- 
 slavery party were great indeed ; their lukewarm partisans 
 left them at once, and joined in the loud outcry which arose 
 against them. They were denounced as the causes of the 
 disaffections of the Colonists and the disorders among the 
 slaves. The people at large, in looking at the confusions of 
 the Colonies, did not remember how gentle a remedy for the 
 admitted evil of slavery Avas the one i^roposed by j\Ir Bux- 
 ton ; that all parties in England had agreed, with some 
 modifications, as to its prudence ; and that only to the 
 wilfulness and prejudice of the Colonists were these un- 
 happy results to be ascribed. But the angry reproaches 
 which rang in Mr Buxton's ears were nothing compared 
 wdth the mortification he experienced on discovering that 
 the Government, appalled by the consequences of the steps 
 which they had taken, and apparently as regardless of their 
 own dignity as of the interests of their black subjects, were 
 determined to forfeit the pledge which Mr Canning had 
 given — that, if obedience were not voluntarily rendered by 
 the Colonial Legislatures, it should be enforced. Rumours 
 to this effect soon spread abroad ; but they were of so in- 
 
 * While Smith was dying iu his pri- at it, liis attention was drawn to one 
 
 son; (which is described as a place only corner of the sheet, and, on examining 
 
 suited to purposes of torture,) he was it more carefully, he found, written in 
 
 compelled by his persecutors to draw a mmute hand, the reference "2 Cor. 
 
 a bill upon the funds of the London iv. 8, 9 ; " on turning to wliich he foimd 
 
 Missionary Society, in order to defray the text, "We are troubled on every 
 
 the expenses of his so-called trial, side, yet not distressed; wo are pei'- 
 
 Many years afterwards, the secretary plexed.butnotindespair; persecuted, 
 
 of that society, in arranging some old but not forsaken ; cast down, but not 
 
 paptr.^, met with this bill. In looking destroyed." 
 
 G
 
 72 MR BUXTON'S POSITION". [JEt. 38. 
 
 definite a character, that the Abolitionists cotdd not tell 
 what steps the Government proposed to take, nor what pre- 
 parations should be made against them. All the circum- 
 stances seemed to call on Mr Buxton to stop ; but, far from 
 staying his steps, he rather pushed forward. He was con- 
 templating a new plan, namely, the emancipation of all 
 children under seven years of age, ample compensation 
 being granted to the masters : the children were to be edu- 
 cated and maintained by the British Government tUl they 
 were seven years old, and then apprenticed to their former 
 masters ; after which they should be free. 
 
 The following letters will shew fully how the sense of the 
 difficulty of his position, and of the necessity there was for 
 firmly maintaining it, gradually increased in his mind. 
 
 On going to London in February, he writes : — 
 
 "February 9. 
 " As yet we have had no debate on slavery, but oiir foes are so 
 very furious that I imagine we shall soon begin. I am intensely 
 busy. On Saturday we had a meeting, to which I read my plan. 
 The more I think of it, the more I like it. We meet again on Satur- 
 day : in the interim, an attack wiU probably be made on us, which 
 I am to answer. I shall endeavour to do it with effect. We have 
 a capital case as to the Demerara insurrection. Smith is innocent. 
 They have offered him mercy if he wiU ask for it, and he has re- 
 fused, standing on his innocence. I am in excellent spirits, and 
 hold my head very high in the matter, and mean to be rather bold 
 in my defence. I expect to see Canning to-morrow ; he seems very 
 cold to me, and the report is, he will join the West Indians. If 
 he does, we shall go to war with him in earnest." 
 
 "February 10. 
 
 "My interview with Canning is for the i^urpose of ascertaining 
 what Government means to do, and of seeing whether he is dis- 
 posed to receive any plan from us." 
 
 "February 11. 
 
 " I am so languid with over-thought and over-work, that I hardly 
 know how to write; but it is worth while to spend one's strength on 
 that whicli, if it succeeds, will change the condition, almost the 
 nature, of 700,000 human beings. On Saturdaj^ we meet Canning 
 at twelve o'clock, and Brougham, and all the leaders of our party, 
 at tho Duke of Gloucester's, at three o'clock. Then we shall de- 
 cide on our Cf)ur.se. I am not one bit discouraged, and heartily wish 
 a discussion could be brought about, as I think it would change 
 jiubUc oi)iiiion. How much, hf)W very much happier I am in my 
 Oomer retreat, than in tlie midst of all this bustle and turbulence. 
 When you come I sliall be quieter, I hope. I am obliged to attend 
 constantly at the i louse."
 
 1824.] UNPOPULARITY INCURRED. 73 
 
 " Canning's Office, Six o'clock, Feh-uary 14. 
 "We have had a very unsatisfactory interview with Canning. 
 .... The Government mean to forfeit their pledge, and to do nest 
 
 to nothing I have now seen Canning again. He promises to 
 
 postpone any declaration to Parliament till he sees my plan." 
 
 "February 16. 
 
 " The degree of, opposition I will not call it, hut virulence, against 
 me is quite surprising. I much question whether there is a more 
 unpopular individual than myself in the House just at this moment. 
 For this I do not care. 
 
 "nth. — The slavery question looks wretchedly. I begin to 
 think that, opposed as we are by the West Indians, deserted by 
 Government, and deemed enthusiasts by the public, we shall be 
 able to do little or nothing ; however, I rejoice that we have tried." 
 
 It was indeed no light unpopularity which ]\Ir Buxton 
 had incurred. Both mthin and without the walls of the 
 House, ridicule and abuse were heaped upon the Abolition- 
 ists during the first years of their attack on slaverj'. Their 
 conduct was referred to the basest motives, and they were 
 generally stigmatized as fools or knaves, sometimes as both. 
 When the storm was at its highest, one of ]Mr Buxton's 
 friends asked him, " What shall I say when I hear people 
 abusing you 1 " " Say ! " he replied, snapping his fingers, 
 "say that. You good folk think too much of your good 
 name. Do right, and right will he done you." Yet he was 
 not indifierent to the odium which he incurred. Several 
 years afterwards, when public opinion had changed, he ex- 
 presses, in one of his papers, his gratitude to God, "that 
 my privileges and enjojouents in life have not been de- 
 stroyed ; that my enemies (enemies of mine because I 
 am the friend of the enslaved) have not triumphed over 
 me ; that I cannot now say, as David did, and as I was 
 once prone to repeat, ' Keproach hath broken my heart. ' " 
 
 "February 17. 
 " I see very clearly, that I shall not be able to go down to Cromer ; 
 my absence would further intimidate our few friends, who are 
 
 sufficiently timid as it is I keep up my spirits pretty well, 
 
 but what with the mental fatigue I have undergone, and the dis- 
 appointment we have experienced, I cannot feel very light-hearted." 
 
 "February, 1824. 
 "We had a very bustling day on Saturday; a meeting with 
 Canning at twelve o'clock, in which he told us, that Government had 
 determined to yield to the West Indian clamour, and do nothing, 
 except in Trinidad, where there is no Colonial Assembly. There 
 they will do everything they promised last year. This timidity ia
 
 74 DIFFERENCES OF OPINION. [JEr. 33. 
 
 very painful. It frustrates aU our hopes, and it will enable the 
 West Indians to say, that we are wild, enthusiastic people, and that 
 the people of England ought to be guided by the sober discretion 
 of Government — which sober discretion is downright timidity." 
 
 The ministers refused to adopt Mr Buxton's scheme, and 
 as the 16th of March approached, (the day appointed by 
 Mr Canning for the discussion of the question,) the Anti- 
 slavery party, now reduced to a veiy small number, became 
 much discouraged and depressed. The Government did 
 not conceal that they meant to relinquish the policy of the 
 preceding year ; and it seemed probable that, having thus 
 come to a breach with the Anti-slavery leaders, these latter 
 would be treated as scapegoats, on whom public indignar 
 tion might be poured. Under these circumstances, a dif- 
 ference of opinion arose in the Anti-slavery councils as to 
 the course to be pursued. 
 
 Many advised that the anticipated attack from Mr 
 Canning should be received in silence, and that the Anti- 
 slavery party should not come forward to state their own 
 case till some days afterwards, when the first impression 
 made by his eloquence should have died away. On hearing 
 that the venerable Mr Stephen concurred in this advice, 
 Mr Buxton exclaimed — 
 
 " 'Tis odds, indeed, when valiant Warwick flies." 
 
 To the course recommended he himself was altogether 
 opposed : he wished to make a stand at once, and indeed 
 to act on the offensive, by exposing the vacillation of the 
 Government, if it should prove that they did not intend to 
 fulfil the expectations held out in the preceding year. In 
 these views ho was supported by Dr Lushington, Mr 
 William Smith, Mr W. Evans, and Mr S. Hoarc. 
 
 Thus encouraged, Mr Buxton resolved to persevere : the 
 other leaders gradually fell into his views, and the plan of 
 operations was arranged. The previous division of opinion 
 had, liowever, been a source of great anxiety to him ; and 
 he was almost worn out by his unremitting exertions, 
 which had of late been chiefly directed to the procuring 
 digested proofs of the cruelty with which the slaves were 
 treated, and of the rapid decrease of the black population. 
 He writes on the 12tli February 1824:— "The Aveight of 
 business, and worse still, of thought, wliich overhangs me
 
 1824.] GOVERNMENT DEAWS BACK. lO 
 
 at this time, is greater than I ever experienced before ; " 
 and on another occasion, — " I am fatigued, I am distressed 
 with fatigue." The prospect before him was full of diffi- 
 culties. The small Anti- slavery party were attacked on all 
 sides with fury. In the House there were hardly more 
 than half-a-dozen stanch friends to the cause, while two 
 hundred members were considered to be more or less 
 directly inimical to it ; and now, if the Government were 
 to be swayed by the tide of public opinion, and abandon 
 its schemes of the previous year, how could the small, un- 
 aided band of Abolitionists indulge the hope of even ulti- 
 mate success in their undertaking 1 
 
 Their fears were but too well founded. Mr Canning 
 carefully withdrew from his connexion with those whose 
 principles and measures he had the year before, in a great 
 degree, adopted as his own, but whom he now discovered 
 to be acting " under the impulses of enthusiasm ; " and he 
 informed the House, " that the Government was determined 
 to compel the ameliorations in Trinidad, but to apply for 
 the present no measure more stringent than 'admonition' 
 to the contumacious Colonies." 
 
 Mr Buxton replied, and fearlessly attacked the Govern- 
 ment for its vacillatmg conduct. He read over the resolu- 
 tions of the year before ; which he justly denominated " a 
 distinct pledge given by Government that the condition of 
 the slave population should be ameliorated." Quoting 
 also Mr Cannings words, that " if the Colonial Legislatures 
 would not consent to these ameliorations, — if any resistance 
 should be manifested to the expressed and declared wish 
 of Parliament, any resistance which should partake, not of 
 reason, but of contumacy, — it would create a case, upon 
 which his Majesty's Government would not hesitate to 
 come down to Parliament for counsel." 
 
 " Now," said Mr Buxton, " if this full and comprehensive pledge, 
 this engagement given as to all the Colonies, is to be frittered down, 
 at present at least, to a single island; if the advantages promised 
 are to be gi-anted indeed, to the 30,000 slaves in Trinidad, but with- 
 held from the 350,000 in Jamaica, and the 70,000 in Barbadoes ; if 
 the ' earliest period ' is to be construed to mean some time, so unde- 
 fined and distant, that no man can say in what centuiy it will take 
 place ; if our pledge to do this is now to mean no more than that 
 we will suffer it to be done by the slow and gradual course of ad- 
 monition and example — then, I see no reason why ten centuries may
 
 76 MR BUXTON'S SPEECH. [^t. 38. 
 
 not elapse, before the negroes are freed from their present state of 
 melancholy and deplorable thraldom. We who have engaged in 
 the cause, we, at least, will be no parties to such a desertion of 
 duty, to such a breach of faith. 
 
 "I well know," he added, "the diflBcult situation in which I 
 stand. No man is more aware than I am of my inability to follow 
 the brilliant and able speech which has just been delivered. But I 
 have a duty to perform, and I will perform it. I know well what I 
 incur by this. I know how I call down upon myself the violent 
 animosity of an exasperated and most powerful party. I know how 
 reproaches have rung in my ears since that pledge was given, and 
 how they will ring with tenfold fury now that I call for its fulfil- 
 ment. Let them ring ! I will not purchase for myself a base in- 
 demnity with such a sting as this on my conscience : ' You ventured 
 to agitate the question; a pledge was obtained; you were, there- 
 fore, to be considered the holder of that pledge, to which the hopes 
 of half a million of people were linked. And then, fearful of a 
 little unpopularity, and confounded by the dazzling eloquence of 
 the right hon. gentleman, you sat still, you held your peace, and 
 wei"e satisfied to see his pledge, in favour of a whole archipelago, 
 reduced to a single island.' " 
 
 He concluded liis speech, in wliicli lie laid bare a series 
 of acts of atrocious cruelty in tlie treatment of the negroes, 
 by stating distinctly, " What I have now said, I have said 
 from a sense of public duty. I have no hostility to the 
 planters. Compensation to the planter, emancipation to 
 the children of the negro — these are my desires, this is the 
 consummation, the just and glorious consummation, on 
 which my hopes are planted, and to Avhich, as long as I 
 live, my most strenuous efforts shall be directed ! " He 
 was well supported by Dr Lushington, Mr Evans, and Mr 
 Wilberforce. The latter, who, as usual, was hopeful amidst 
 discouragements, thus addresses him on the day after the 
 debate : — 
 
 "Brompton Grove, March 17, 1824. 
 
 " My Dear Friend, — It was quite a disappointment to me not 
 to see you at the House to-day. There are points on which I shall 
 be glad to confer with you. Meanwhile I am strongly urged by 
 my feelings to express to you the solid satisfaction with which I 
 take a Kohcr estimate of the progress which, through the goodness of 
 Providence, we have already made, and the good hopes which we 
 may justly indulge as to the future. To find the two Houses of 
 Parliament, each full of members to the brim, consulting about the 
 interests and comforts of those who, not long ago, wore scarcely 
 rated above the level of orang-outang.s, is almost as sure an indica- 
 tion of our complett; success ere long, as the streaks of morning light 
 are of the fulness of meridian day. I hoj)o I may live to congratu- 
 Lito you, even iu this world, on the coniidcte success of your gene-
 
 1824.] THE DEMERARA INSURRECTION. 77 
 
 rous labours ; at all events, I trust humbly, that we may rejoice and 
 triumph together in a better world, for we, my dear friend, may, 
 more truly than the great artist, affirm, that we are working for 
 eternity. And our KTrjixa is aei wiU be enjoyed, I trust, in common 
 with many, many of our poor black brethren, when all bondage and 
 injustice, all sorrow and pain having ceased, love and truth, and 
 mercy and peace and joy, shall be our everlasting portion. Oh, my 
 friend, let us strive more and more earnestly for all that is right 
 here, looking forward to these glorious prospects ! " 
 
 On the 1st of June a motion respecting the missionary 
 Smith was brought forward by Mr Brougham, in a brilliant 
 speech of four hours' length, which produced a strong effect 
 upon public feeling. 
 
 One remarkable circumstance by which the Demerara 
 insurrection was distinguished, namely, the extraordinary 
 forbearance of the rebel negroes, is thus mentioned by 
 him : — 
 
 " The slaves," he said, " inflamed by false hopes of freedom, 
 agitated by rumours, and irritated by the suspense and ignorance 
 in which they were kept ; exasperated by ancient as well as more 
 recent wrongs, (for a sale of fifty or sixty of them had just been 
 announced, and they were about to be violently separated and dis- 
 persed,) were satisfied with combining not to work, and thus making 
 their managers repair to the town and ascertain the precise nature 
 of the boon reported to have arrived from England. The calum- 
 niated minister had so far humanised his poor flock, his dangerous 
 preaching had so enlightened them, the lessons of himself and his 
 hated brethren had sunk so deep in their minds, that by the testi- 
 mony of the clergymen, and even of the overseers, the maxims of 
 the gospel of peace were upon their lips in the midst of rebellion, 
 and restrained their hands when no other force was present to resist 
 them. 'We will take no life,' said they, 'for oxir pastors have 
 taught us not to take that which we cannot give,' a memorable 
 peculiarity which drew from the truly pious minister* of the Esta- 
 bUshed Church there, the exclamation, ' that he shuddered to write 
 that the planters were seeking the life of the man whose teaching 
 had saved theirs.' "f 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh followed, and was succeeded by 
 Dr Lushington, Mr "Wilberforce, Mr Williams, and Mr 
 Denman, The debate was closed by a powerful reply 
 from Lord Brougham. This discussion, as had been pre- 
 dicted, changed the current of public opinion. The nation, 
 which before had partaken of the consternation of the 
 Government, began to awaken to the truth, and from 
 
 * The clergyman here referred to was the Rev. Mr Austin, whose conduct 
 in this transaction caused his exile from Demerara. 
 t Hansard's Debates. New Series, vol. xi. p. 994.
 
 78 CASE OF MR SHREWSBURY. [^t. 38. 
 
 henceforth the religious public in England was strongly 
 enlisted on behalf of the oppressed missionaries and their 
 persecuted followers ; and this feeling soon increased into a 
 detestation of that system, of which such intolerance was 
 the natural fruit. On the 15th of June, the subject was 
 renewed in the House by Mr Wilberforce, and a promise 
 was wrested from the Government of extending the Order 
 in Council to St Lucia and Demerara, as well as Trinidad. 
 
 Mr Buxton passed the autumn at Cromer Hall, recruit- 
 ing his health, and at the same time strenuously exerting 
 himself m procuring information which might assist the 
 future conduct of the cause. 
 
 In June 1825, he brought before the House the case 
 of Mr Shrewsbury. This gentleman was a Wesleyan 
 missionary in Barbadoes, "in whose conduct," as Mr 
 Canning exj^ressly stated in the House, "there did not 
 appear the sUghtest ground of blame or suspicion." But 
 the planters were exasperated against him for his exertions 
 in the instruction of the negroes and free people of colour ; 
 and it was also charged against him, that he had actually 
 corresponded with Mr Buxton ! " Though," said the latter 
 in the House, " I never received from or wrote to him a 
 single letter ; nor did I know that such a man existed, till 
 I happened to take up a newspaper, and there read, with 
 some astonishment, that he was going to be hanged for 
 corresponding with me ! " 
 
 On two successive Sundays in October 1823, the doors 
 of !Mr Shrewsbury's chapel were stormed during the hours 
 of divine worship by a furious mob, who did not, however, 
 at that time proceed to actual outrage ; but a day or two 
 afterwards a " proclamation " was published, calling on all 
 the "true lovers of religion" to assemble in arms on the 
 following Sunday, and pull down the chapel and mission- 
 house. This they accordingly did ; but Mr Shrewsbury 
 had concealed himself in the house of a clergyman, " whose 
 kindness," said j\Ir Buxton, "then displayed to a poor, 
 friendless missionary, hunted for his life by an infuriated 
 mob, I will now return, by concealing his name ; knowing, 
 that if I were to mention it with approbation, the fate of 
 Mr Austin of Demerara would await him." 
 
 " Thoro is," lio continuud, " in tliiw tranyactioii at Barbadoes, as
 
 1825.] DEBATE ON SHREWSBURY'S CASE. 79 
 
 there was also in that at Demerara, that which of all things I hate 
 the most, a rank, fierce, furious spirit of religious bigotry domi- 
 nant throughout the island, and pursuing its victims, the one to 
 death, and the other to exile. But there is that, also, which does 
 honour to human nature, and casts a glory round the Church to 
 which I belong, and which I prefer to all others, namely, that these 
 poor victims. Dissenters, missionaries, Methodists, though they 
 were, found their best friends, and their most faithfid advisers, in 
 the ranks of our clergy. Mr Austin, for one of the most noble acts 
 which have been done in our days, is a ruined and banished man ; 
 and I conceal the name of the other, in order to spare him — the 
 honours, indeed, but — the sufferings of martyrdom."* 
 
 He concluded, not by demanding any punisliment on the 
 guilty parties, but simply by moving that they should be 
 compelled to rebuild the chapel. The House, however, 
 would only join him in a vote of censure upon those con- 
 cerned in the crime. 
 
 In his reply at the end of the debate, he said, — 
 
 " I wish it to be distinctly understood that it is my firm and un- 
 alterable resolution to devote aU my life and my efforts to advocat- 
 ing the cause of the slaves ; and that I will persist in that course, in 
 spite of opposition, unpopularity, obloquy, or falsehood." 
 
 In the beginning of the session of 1826, Mr Buxton 
 mentions that two meetings about slavery had been already 
 held ; and he adds, — 
 
 " I saw Canning yesterday : he was very friendly ; intimated that 
 the Government meant to do something ; but as he had refused to 
 tell the West Indians what that something was, he also refused to 
 tell us. On Tuesday next I bring forward the London Petition, and 
 we shall have a warm discussion. On Thursday we have Denman's 
 motion on the Jamaica trials — another fierce discussion ; and these 
 will probably be followed by a host of other questions." 
 
 Mr Buxton presented the London petition against slavery 
 on the 1st of March : it was signed by 73,000 persons. In 
 his speech he praised the Order in CouncU enforced in Trini- 
 dad, and again pointed out how ineffectual had been the 
 recommendations of the Government to the legislatures^of 
 the other islands, " I am anxious," he declared, " to say 
 nothing that can give offence to any party ; but it is my 
 duty broadly to declare my confirmed and deliberate con- 
 viction, that tliis House must do the work themselves, or 
 suflFer it to be altogether abandoned." 
 
 After the close of this session, there was a pause in the 
 operations of the Abolitionists. As Mr Canning had posi- 
 
 * Hansard. New Series, vol. xiii. p. 12S5.
 
 80 A YEAR'S PAUSE. [^t. 39. 
 
 tively declared that the Government would give the Colonial 
 
 Legislature another year's trial, before it would take the task 
 of amelioration into its own hands, nothing remained for 
 the Anti-slavery party but to await the expiration of that 
 period. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 1822-1826. 
 
 For the last few years Mr Buxton had generally resided 
 with his family in the spring and summer, near the House 
 of Commons, spending, however, much of his time at Ham 
 House, Mr S. Gurney's seat in Essex, and with Mr S. 
 Hoare, at Hampstead. Amid the turmoil of his parlia- 
 mentary life, these country visits were of great advantage 
 to him, as affording him quiet hours for study, and the 
 opportunity of taking those solitary rambles which were the 
 times with him of deepest reflection. 
 
 In 1825, he took a house in Devonshire Street, Portland 
 Place ; but as long as he remained in Parliament, a day of 
 leisure generally found him and Mrs Buxton either at 
 Hampstead or at Ham House. Mr and Mrs S. Hoare, 
 also, regularly passed the months of September and October 
 at Cromer, and for the first year or two Cromer Hall was 
 held in common by the two families. 
 
 After the busy summer in London, Mr Buxton highly 
 relished the retirement and recreation wliich this place 
 afforded. He never lost his taste for shooting, and had the 
 reputation of being a first-rate shot. Great pains were 
 taken by him in the management of his game, especially 
 in rearing his pheasants, which used to feed in very large 
 numbers on the lawn, immediately under the drawing-room 
 windows ; yet he was scarcely ever annoyed by poachers. 
 On one occasion, however, while riding along the road, he 
 saw a young man, in an adjoining field, fire at a partridge 
 and kill it. He opened the gate, and riding up to the 
 youth, who seemed not a little startled at the apparition, 
 .said to him, in a somewhat abrupt tone, " Now, sir, allow 
 me to a.sk you three questions : First, what is your name 
 and residence; secondly, whore is your licence; and, thirdly, 
 who gave you leave to shoot over my ground 1 " The young
 
 1822-1827.] THE SPORTING PROFESSOR. 81 
 
 man made a low bow, and answered in the blandest man- 
 ner : " My name, sir, is . As to j^our two other ques- 
 tions, with your leave, I'U waive them. Sir, I wish you a 
 very good morning ; " and so saying, to Mr Buxton's no 
 small amusement, he slij^ped out of the field. 
 
 Once, when he was staying with Mr Coke at Holkham, 
 a well-known professor was also one of the visitors. The 
 venerable historian had never had a gun in his hand, but 
 on this occasion Mr Coke persuaded him to accompany the 
 shooting-party ; care, however, was taken to place him at a 
 corner of the covert, where it was thought the other sports- 
 men would be out of his reach. When the rest of the party 
 came up to the spot where he was standing, Mr Coke said 
 to him, " Well, what sport 1 You have been firing pretty 
 often!" "Hush!" said the professor, "there it goes 
 again ; " and he was just raising his gun to his shoulder, 
 when a man walked very quietly from the bushes about 
 seventy yards in front of him. It was one of the beaters 
 who had been set to stop the pheasants, and his leather 
 gaiters, dimly seen through the bushes, had been mistaken 
 for a hare by the -professor, who, much surprised by its 
 tenacity of Kfe, had been firing at it whenever he saw it 
 move. " But," said Mr Buxton, " the man had never dis- 
 covered that the professor was shooting at him ! " 
 
 No Arab ever took a greater delight in horses ; and 
 several of his favourites, especially John .Bull, Abraham, 
 and Jeremie, were renowned for their strength and beauty. 
 He was considered a very good judge, and never hesitated 
 to give any price, in order to render his stud more complete. 
 Of dogs, too, he was very fond ; one of his pets came into 
 his possession in a singular manner. He was standing at 
 the door of the House of Commons talking to a friend, 
 when a beautiful black and tan terrier rushed between them, 
 and immediately began barking furiously at ]\Ir Joseph 
 Pease, who was speaking. All the members jumped up, 
 laughing, and some calling out, '* Hear the member for 
 Berkshire;" while ofl&cers of the House chased the dog 
 round and round, tUl at last he took refuge with Mr Bux- 
 ton ; who, as he could find no traces of an owner, carried 
 him home. He proved to be quite an original. One of 
 his whims was to visit, by himself, at the country houses
 
 82 CROMER HALL. [^T. 36-4L 
 
 in the neiglibourhood of Cromer, and his refined manners 
 and intelligence made " Speaker " a welcome guest, wherever 
 he pleased to go. 
 
 Once at rest in the retirement of Cromer Hall, Mr Biix- 
 ton began to lose the grave and care-worn expression which 
 usually marked his countenance while under the heavy 
 pressure of business in town ; not that the autumn was 
 wholly spent in recreation; on the contrary, his studies, 
 chiefly bearing on public objects, were steadily pursued. 
 He generally passed the latter part of his evenings alone in 
 his study, frequently remaining there to a very late hour. 
 
 Cromer Hall was often filled with an easy social party, 
 but he had no Avish to extend his circle much beyond his 
 own relatives, a select few of his parliamentary friends, 
 and the families in the immediate neigbourhood. He had 
 no taste for society of a more formal, and, as he thought, 
 insipid character, nor did he much care for conversation, 
 though at table he would usually enliven the party by 
 his playfulness of manner, and by his store of anecdotes, 
 which he could tell with much force and spirit. He took 
 great pains in providing amusements fop the younger mem- 
 bers of the circle. There is much picturesque scenery around 
 Cromer, and large parties were often collected for excursions 
 to Sheringham, one of the most beautiful spots in all the 
 eastern counties, to the wooded dells of Felbrigg and Run- 
 ton, or to the rough heath ground by the Black Beacon. 
 At home, also, he was energetic in setting on foot amuse- 
 ments for his young friends, such as acting charades, danc- 
 ing, Christmas games, or amusing reading. At one time a 
 family newspaper was started, which appeared once a-week ; 
 and great was the interest excited in reading the various 
 contributions, grave and gay, which every one sent in. 
 Somotinics he would give a list of poets, from whose works 
 the juvenile i)art of the circle were invited to learn by heart ; 
 and examinations were held, witli valuable books as prizes. 
 Otlier schemes of tlie same kind were frequently set on foot, 
 all intended to draw out the mind, and spur it to exertion. 
 His thouglitfulness for others, combined with an unswerv- 
 ing strictness, gave him a remarkable influence over those 
 around him j it lias been tlius referred to by one who was a 
 frequent guest at Cromer Hall : —
 
 1822-1827.] MAXIMS FOR THE YOUNG. 83 
 
 " I wish I could describe the impression made upon me 
 by the extraordinary power of interesting and stimulating 
 others which was possessed by Sir Fowell Buxton some 
 thirty years ago. In my own case it was like having 
 powers of thinking, powers of feeling, and, above all, the 
 love of true poetry, suddenly aroused within me, which, 
 though I may have possessed them before, had been till 
 then imused. From Locke on the Human Understanding 
 to ' William of Deloraine good at need,' he woke up in me 
 the sleeping principle of taste ; and in giving me such 
 objects of jjursuit, has added immeasurably to the happi- 
 ness of my life." 
 
 He more than once recommended Locke on the Under- 
 standing to the perusal of young people, as a useful work 
 in establishing the habit of receiving truth with imparti- 
 ality. "That," he said, "is one of the most important 
 things to impress on the minds of children, habitually to 
 seek for the truth, whether for or against our previous 
 opinions and interests." He certainly illustrated his own 
 maxim, for he was from his youth up remarkably fi-ee from 
 jDrejudices, and ready to give ear to whatever could be ad- 
 duced against his own views. 
 
 He seems to have had some idea of publishing a Little 
 work, to be called "Maxims for the Young." The follow- 
 ing extracts from the rough memoranda for this work throw 
 light, not only upon his views as to education, but also on 
 his own character : — 
 
 HINTS FOR MAXIMS FOR THE YOUNG. 
 
 " Mankind in general mistake difficulties for impossibilities. That 
 is the difference between those who efi'ect, and those who do not. 
 
 " People of weak judgment are the most timid, as horses half 
 blind are most apt to start. 
 
 " Burke in a letter to Miss Shackleton says : — 
 
 " ' Thus much in favour of activity and occupation, that the more 
 one has to do, the more one is capable of doing, even beyond our 
 direct task.' 
 
 " Plato, ' better to err in acts, than principles.' 
 
 * Idleness the greatest prodigality. 
 
 " Two kinds of idleness, — a listless, and an active. 
 
 " If industrious, we should direct our efforts to right ends. 
 
 " Possibly it may require as much (industry) to be best biUiard- 
 player as to be senior wrangler. 
 
 " The endowments of nature we cannot command, but we can 
 cultivate those given.
 
 84 LOVE OF MANLY CHARACTER, [^t. 36-40. 
 
 " My experience, that men of great talents are apt to do notliing 
 for want of vigour. 
 
 ' ' Vigour, — energy, — resolution, — firmness of piirpose, — these 
 can-y the day. 
 
 " Is there one whom difficulties dishearten, — who bends to the 
 storm ? — He will do little. Is there one who ivill conquer ? — That 
 kind of man never fails. 
 
 " Let it be your first study to teach the world that you are not 
 wood and straw — some iron in you. 
 
 " Let men know that what you say you will do ; that your de- 
 cision made is final, — no wavering ; that, once resolved, you are not 
 to be allvured or intimidated. 
 
 " Acquire and maintain that character." 
 
 "Eloquence — the most useful talent; one to be acquired, or 
 improved ; all the great speakers bad at first. — Huskisson. — How to 
 be acquired. 
 
 " Write your speeches, — no inspiration. 
 
 " Labour to put your thoughts in the clearest view. 
 
 " A bold, decided, outline. 
 
 " Read ' multum, non multa, — homo unius libri.* 
 
 " Learn by heart everything that strikes you. — Fox. 
 
 " Thus ends my lecture ; nineteen out of twenty become good or 
 bad as they choose to make themselves. 
 
 " The most important part of your education is that which you 
 now give yourselves." 
 
 He writes to his nephew, Mr Hoare's eldest son, who 
 had been disappointed in the scholarship examination at 
 Trinity : — 
 
 "Hampstead, April 27, 1827. 
 
 " I need not, I suppose, say that I have my full share of this dis- 
 appointment; but that is not the subject on which I am going to 
 write. All my advice is crowded into this single sentence, ' Tu ue 
 cede malis, sed contra audentior ito.' 
 
 " This mortification is a test -which will try your character. If 
 that character be feeble, the disappointment will weigh upon your 
 spirits ; you will relax your exertions, and begin to despond, and to 
 be idle. That is the general character of men : they can do very 
 well when the breeze is in their favour, but they are cowed by the 
 Btorm. If your character is vigorous and masculine, you will gather 
 strength from this defeat, and encouragement from this disappoint- 
 ment. If fortune will not give you her favours, you will tear them 
 from her by force ; and if yoti were my own son, as you very nearly 
 are, I would ratlier you should have failed, and then exhibited this 
 determination, than that everything should have gone smoothly. I 
 like your letter much ; it breathes a portion of this luiconquerable 
 HI)irit, which is worth all the Latin, Greek, and Logaritluns in the 
 world, .and all tlic ]irizes which ever were given. Now, tiien, is the 
 time; be a man and avenge yourself at the next examination. If 
 you are sick at heart, and can't sleep, and laugli, and defy maUcious
 
 ] 822-1 826.] SHIPWKECK AT CROMER. 85 
 
 fortune, then you may make a very decent banker, but there is an 
 end of you. If you can summon up courage for the occasion, and 
 pluck from this faihire the materials for future success, then the 
 loss of the scholarship may be a gain for life." 
 
 He could not bear tlie stream of life to run shallow : he 
 liked its tide to be full and strong, longing to make others 
 share in his own impetus and force of character. This 
 delight in manliness of mind led him to set his face firmly 
 against all listlessness in amusement as well as in study. 
 He was much averse to confining boys too closely to the 
 schoolroom, and was always ready to propose holidays ; 
 but then he took care to provide shooting, cricketing, or 
 some other active diversion for them. At the same time 
 he was very strict in enforcing his orders. The tendency 
 of his mind was to assume command in a decisive and even 
 somewhat stern manner ; but this was corrected by the 
 extreme tenderness of his heart, which led him in all things 
 to weigh carefully the feelings and pleasures of those under 
 his authority. " I know," he says in a letter from Cromer 
 Hall, " that I am often harsh, and violent, and very dis- 
 agreeable, but I sincerely think that I do not know a 
 person less inclined than I am to curb the deep desires of 
 others, or to force my views down their throats. I believe 
 I am a true friend to liberty of feeling, and I tliink it high 
 arrogance in one human being to pretend to dictate to 
 another what is for that other's happiness."' His forbear- 
 ance was continually shewn in the turmoil of public life. 
 In transacting business, on committees, and in the conduct 
 of difficult affiiirs with tliose of widely diverging opinions, 
 his subjugation of temper, and his gentle, persuasive manner 
 were remarkable. One of his most faithful supporters at 
 Weymouth thus writes of him : — 
 
 " It must be well known to every one conversant with contested 
 elections, that nothing can try the temper more, from the unwar- 
 rantable liberty of the press and the unfair means, both in word and 
 deed, used on such occasions ; yet though I have followed the late 
 Sir Fowell through all his hard, long, and severe contests in this 
 borough, I never knew him once lose his temper, once give a harsh 
 reply, or use an unkind word to any one ; nothing ever disturbed 
 the ' even tenor of his way.' " 
 
 Before the establishment of the floating light oflf Happis- 
 burgh, wrecks were very frequent on the Cromer coast. 
 On any rumour of a vessel in danger, Mr Buzton and Mr
 
 86 PERILOUS EXPLOIT. [^t. 36-40, 
 
 Hoare used to be among the first on the shore, not merely 
 to urge and direct the efforts of others, but to give their 
 personal aid. On one of these occasions Mr Buxton him- 
 self ran considerable risk in the terrible storm of the 31st 
 of October, 1823, which was long remembered on the Nor- 
 folk coast. About twelve o'clock a collier brig, "The 
 Duchess of Cumberland," ran upon the rocks off the Cromer 
 lighthouse. The lifeboat was immediately brought out, 
 but so tremendous was the sea that no persuasion could 
 induce the fishermen to put off. Once when a wave ran 
 up the beach and floated her, Mr Buxton hoping to spur 
 them on by his example, sprang in, shouting to them to 
 follow him, but without effect. Captain Manby's gun was 
 repeatedly fired, but the line fell short of the vessel, in 
 which nine sailors were seen lashed to the shrouds. At 
 length a huge sea burst over her, and she went to pieces, 
 blackening the waters with her cargo of coal. For an in- 
 stant the spectators looked on in silent awe. " Poor dear 
 hearts, they 're all gone now ! " exclaimed an old fisherman ; 
 but at that moment Mr Buxton thought he saw one of 
 them borne upon the top of a wave. Without waiting for 
 a rope, he at once dashed into the surf — caught the man 
 — flung himself upon him, and struggled against the strong 
 drawback of the retiring billow, until others could reach 
 him, and he was dragged to land with his rescued mariner, 
 both of them in a state of utter exhaustion. The deed 
 was considered by those on shore to have been one of ex- 
 treme perU and daring. He said himself that he felt the 
 waves play with him as he could play with an orange. 
 
 A prominent feature of his character was the careful 
 cmploj'ment of his influence in promoting the spread of 
 religion around him. On the Sunday evenings his large 
 diuing-i'oom was usually filled with a miscellaneous audi- 
 ence, many of the fishermen and other neighbours collecting 
 round him as well as his own household ; and very im- 
 pressive Avcre his brief but well-digested comments on the 
 l)assage of Scrijjture he had read. His rule was to say 
 nothing unless he liad something really weighty to say. 
 lli.s nianner of speaking shewed that ho was not only a 
 teacher but a learner; he appeared to drink in the tnith, 
 and to appropriate it with an earnestness wliich could not
 
 1822-1826.] STUDY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 87 
 
 but excite a corresponding feeling in those who heard him. 
 His sentiments with regard to the study of the Scriptures 
 are thus expressed : — 
 
 " Undoubtedly it is good to read the Bible ; it is well to read it 
 occasionally ; and if we do no more than take a superficial view of 
 it, and just snatch a few fragments of truth frona it, even this is 
 better than its utter neglect. 
 
 "But this is not the way to gather from the Sacred Word those 
 treasures of knowledge which it will yield. We must not read it 
 but study it ; we must not cast a hasty glance upon it, but meditate 
 upon it deeply with fixed attention, with full purpose of heart, with 
 all the energy of our minds, if we desire to become masters of the 
 treasures of revelation ; and I am sure that Scripture thus diligently 
 studied, read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested; and read 
 too with prayer for the influence of the Holy Spirit, will furnish 
 us with new light, open to us new views, and will appear to us in 
 itself of a new character, adorned with a variety of beauties, with 
 an emphasis of expression, with a power and a vigour and an 
 appropriateness to our own needs, with a harvest of divine instruc- 
 tion and cogent truth, never yielded to its careless cultivation. I 
 have known men, and men of good understanding, who have been 
 induced to read the Bible, and who have protested that they could 
 make nothing of it, that they could not comprehend it ; — no wonder; 
 it is a sealed book to those who neither ask nor receive the Holy 
 Spirit. 
 
 " An astronomer looks at the face of the heavens through a tele- 
 scope, spangled with stars and planets, and sees a harmonj'^, an 
 order, a profuse display of power and wisdom. An ordinary man 
 surveys the same sky with the naked eye, and observes nothing of 
 all this : he has not the instrument ; he wants the telescope which 
 would reveal the wonders of the heavens to him. And so it is in 
 reading the Bible; if a man looks at it with naked unassisted reason, 
 he sees little, and learns nothing; he wants the instrument, the 
 Holy Spirit, to guide his inquiries, to enlighten his understanding, 
 to touch his heart. 
 
 " But if some read it and learn nothing, others read it and learn 
 but little. They begin without prayer, and they end without medi- 
 tation. They read, but they do not inwardly digest; while others 
 embrace its truths, seize and secure its treasures, and, to use the 
 figure of Scripture, receive the engrafted woid which is able to save 
 their souls." 
 
 Mr Buxton and Mr Hoare had taken much pains in 
 establishing branches of the Bible and missionary societies 
 at Cromer, and from that time they made a point of attend- 
 ing and taking a part in the annual meetings. Only on 
 one occasion was Mr Hoare absent from them, up to the 
 time of liis death — a period of twenty-five years ; and Mr 
 Buxton was scarcely less regular. In every way he strove 
 
 H
 
 88 LETTER ON STYLE. [^t. 36-40. 
 
 to promote tlie wellbeing of liis poorer nciglibours : their 
 sufferings touclied him to the quick, and great was his 
 anxiety to relieve them. Proofs that he was popular among 
 them were often given. Having gone one clay to speak to 
 one of the magistrates, in coming out he was surrounded 
 by a crowd of people, one of whom said to him, " I hope, 
 sir, you will attend the meeting to-day." " No, I do not 
 understand magistrates' business." "Yes, sir," answered a 
 man, " you are the poor man's magistrate." 
 
 TO A FRIEND. 
 
 "London, Ai^ril 16, 1823. 
 
 " I will take an early opportunity of moving for the account of 
 tlie stations, and for the number of lives saved by the use of Cap- 
 tain Manby's apparatus ; but the purpose of my writing at present 
 is of a difierent nature. You say ' Pathos is not, in any sense, in 
 my composition,' and you intimated in our conversation last Sunday, 
 that you felt fit for the drudgery of stating facts, but not possessed 
 of the art of giving to your statements entertainment and interest. 
 Now, this is \itteiiy and without reserve untrue. The fact is that 
 all persons, if they set about it aright, have the capacity of convey- 
 ing their feelings to others Honestly speaking, however, I 
 
 do think there is a certain degree of languor and want of vivacity 
 in your studied productions ; and I am sure I know the cause. You 
 imagine, when you appear before the public, that you must appear 
 in full dress, correct to a nicety — precise to a hair ; and that artless, 
 native na'ivetd, and undi'essed good-humour, are imbefitting so 
 solemn an occasion as an address to the public : in all which you 
 are eminently deceived. You are of opinion that the public is so 
 sagacious a creature as to require only bare facts; that he wants 
 no more ornament or entertainment than a mathematician. Now, 
 believe me, the public neither can nor will receive into his obtuse 
 understanding anything which is not conveyed through the medium 
 of his imagination or his feelings ; and if you want to move him, 
 you must address yourself to those only openings through which 
 he is assailable. All the observations I have made in life, — all the 
 persons who have succeeded, and all those who have failed, furnish 
 proofs of this. I will, however, only give you one. Dr Lawrence, 
 a man of great learning and talents, used to make speeches in the 
 House, admirable for their facts, but to which no man ever attended, 
 except Fox : ho was always seen sitting in the attitude of deep 
 attention ; and when asked the reason, he said, ' Because I mean to 
 speak this speech over again.' He actually did so ; and those facts 
 which, from ]Jr Lawrence, were unbearably heavy, moved and 
 dciiglitcd the House from Fox, and insured certain and silent atten- 
 tion from all. Why ? LecauBo Dr L. thought with you, — and Fox 
 had the good fcjrtiuie to agree with me ! 
 
 " Now, then, the ajiplication (jf all this. You ought to study the 
 art of couipositiou— the means of conveying to the world your own
 
 1S22-1826.] LETTER ON CANDOUR. 89 
 
 views and feelings. I am sure, from your habits of research, and 
 your literary powers and ojiportunities, you may do a great deal of 
 good ; but you are bound to do your best to effect that object, in 
 the way by which alone it can be accomplished — by tickling the 
 fancy of the public. 
 
 " First, I should advise you, in writing, to put down the native, 
 gay effusions of your own mind ; and to avoid destroying their effect 
 by a cold, correct emendation. 
 
 "Secondly, I would advise you to study composition; — 'but 
 where ? ' In ' Cicero,' m ' Quinctilian,' in ' Chesterfield's Letters,' 
 (you will smile at the assembly,) in the three papers on the speech 
 of Demosthenes in the EdinhurgJi Review, in ' South's Sermons,' 
 * Junius's Letters,' and the ' Spectator.' Imbibe the spirit of these, 
 and I will venture to assert that the public will feel as you feel, 
 and respond to any appeal you make to them." 
 
 To a friend who had remonstrated with him on speaking 
 too strongly to a person in power on the subject of slavery : — 
 
 "1826. 
 
 "I cannot leave London without acknowledging the receipt of 
 your letter, though I am not veiy well. 
 
 " Our conversation has left a kind of double impression on my 
 mind. I am glad I spoke out. I have made it a sacred rule to 
 myself never to change my opinion of a man for whom I felt a 
 friendship, without telling him, to his face, what I had to object 
 against him. I have sometimes found myself altogether mistaken ; 
 and often, if not always, there has been something to be said on the 
 other side which I had not anticipated. I am not aware that I ever 
 had a quarrel with any one who had been my friend, and to this 
 good rule I owe my preservation. I am glad, therefore, that I did 
 not disguise what had been long and much on my mind. It is to 
 me matter of amazement that any man of principle can materially 
 differ with me on the subject of slavery. I wonder when I see an 
 honest man who does not hate it as I do, who does not long for the 
 opportunity of giving it a death-blow ; and as I cannot believe that 
 any change of circumstances could make me anything but a favourer, 
 and well-wisher, and encourager to those who were devoted to that 
 duty, I am quite perplexed by finding that there are persons who 
 
 look upon me, because thus engaged, with an vinfriendly eye. 
 
 is a man for whom I have ever entertained both respect and liking ; 
 I am therefore glad I hazarded the truth ; but I am not glad that I 
 did it in so strong a manner. I did not tell my whole mind. I 
 wished to have said that I was very sorry I could not acknowledge 
 many services he had rendered to our cause ; but I wished to have 
 said this in sorrow, not in anger : and if I left the impression that 
 I had any feeling of enmity towards him I did myself great injustice." 
 
 TO A CLERGYMAN. 
 
 " Cromer Hall, August 22, 1826. 
 "My Dear Friend, — I very much wish you would come into
 
 90 LETTER TO A CLERGYMAN. [^t. 36-40. 
 
 Korfolk, for I really want to have a conversation with you ; and, it 
 is odd enough, that it is upon a business entirely yours, with which 
 I have no kind of concern. I remember two observations of yours 
 which, httle as I might appear to heed them at the time, made a 
 deep impression on me. The one was, ' I should very much like to 
 be a country gentleman. I would not have the best horses, or dogs, 
 or farms, in the coimty ; but I would exert myself to improve the 
 people who were under my influence. A country gentleman, thus 
 employed, toth vinhiis, might accomplish a vast range of good.' The 
 other was, when you said to one of your parishioners who was fond 
 of music, ' I, too, love music ; I hope to enjoy a great deal of it, but 
 I will wait till I get to heaven.' Now, having had the use of these 
 observations for some years, I feel bound to return them to you for 
 your use and benefit, for it strikes me you want them just at this 
 time. I hear you are going to build a house ; no doubt you will do 
 it with excellent taste ; then it will require to be suitably furnished ; 
 then the grounds must be improved about it, and, by that time, yom* 
 heart will be in it. I am sure that house will lead to your seculari- 
 sation. It will melt you down towards an ordinary country parson ; 
 not the parson who loves his dinner and his claret, but rather towards 
 that refined class of triflers who exquisitely embellish houses and 
 gardens, and who leave the minds and souls of their flocks to take 
 care of themselves. You see I have scratched out ' into ' and inserted 
 ' towards,' because I am bound in truth to confess, that I am sure 
 you will, under any circumstances, and in spite of all seductions be 
 an exemplary clergyman. You will have your schools, and your 
 week-day services, and your sound, hvely, evangelical doctrine in the 
 pulpit ; but what I mean to say is, that just so much of your aflec- 
 tious as you give to your house, exactly so much will you withdraw 
 from your parish. 
 
 "After all, the discharge of a man's duty, and, d fortiori, of a 
 clergyman's duty, requires all the strength we can give it. The 
 world, and the spirit of the world, are very insidious, and the older 
 we grow the more inclined we are to think as others think, and act 
 as others act ; and more than once I have seen a person, who, as a 
 youth, was single-eyed and single-hearted, and who, to any one who 
 supposed he might glide into laxity of zeal, would have said, 'Am I 
 a dog ? ' in maturer age become, if not a lover of the vices of the 
 world, at least a tolerator of its vanities. I speak here feelingly, for 
 the world has worn away nuich of the little zeal I ever had. ' What 
 is the harm,' you will say, ' of a convenient house ; what is the harm 
 of a convenient house being elegant ; of an elegant house being 
 suitably furnished?' The same personage who insinuates this to 
 you, said to me, ' Where is the harm of having a few dogs — those 
 few veiy good ; you i)reserve game — do it well — do it better than 
 other peoi)le : ' and so he stole away my heart from better things. 
 I have more game, and better horses and dogs than other people, but 
 the same energy, disposed of in a different way, might have spread 
 I'iljlo and missionary Bocietiea over the hundred of North 
 Erjiiiigham. 
 
 " All thia applies to you, more than to any person I know. You
 
 1822-1826.] LETTER TO A CLERGYMAK 91 
 
 have, by a singular dispensation of Providence, obtained a station of 
 influence ; you have a vigour and alacrity of mind with which few 
 are gifted ; upon no man's heart is ' the vanity of this life ' more 
 strongly stamped. You have a great, as far as my experience goes, 
 an vmequalled influence over those around you. These together 
 constitute great power of doing good. The question is, shall you 
 give it wholly to God, walking through life as one who really despises 
 the indulgences on which others set their hearts ; acting fully up to 
 your own creed, and the convictions of your better moments, or will 
 you give two-thirds of that power to God, and one-third of it to the 
 world? Will you have your music here, or will you wait a few 
 years for it ? Old Wesley said, when called upon, according to the 
 act of Parliament, to give an account of his service of plate, in order 
 to be taxed, ' I have five silver spoons ; these are all I have, and all I 
 mean to have, while my poor neighbours want bread.' That is the 
 spirit which becomes a minister. Will you say, twenty years hence, 
 to Death, when he pays you a visit, ' I built this house — by the con- 
 fession of all men, a parsonage in the purest taste ; I selected these 
 pictures : observe the luxuriance of the trees I planted ; just do me 
 the favour to notice the convenience of this library, and the beauty 
 of the prospect from that window'' or will you say, 'I have spent 
 my days in this homely habitation, where there is nothing for 
 luxury to enjoy or taste to admire ; but there is my parish, not a 
 child there but can read the Bible, and loves it too : in every house 
 there is prayer, in every heart there is an acknowledgment of Christ, 
 and that He came into the world to save sinners ? ' I do not mean 
 to say, even if you build your house, that when that epoch arrives 
 you will not be able to shew a very good parish, as well as a very 
 good parsonage ; I only mean to say, that the house and the parish 
 will be the inverse of each other, the better the house, the worse the 
 parish. The less you surroimd yourself with accommodations, the 
 less you conform yourself to the taste of the multitude ; the more 
 exclusively, and the more powerfully, you will do your own work. 
 
 " No man has a surplus of power : meaning by power — time, 
 talents, money, influence. There is room for the exercise of all, and 
 more than all, which the most aOluent possesses. Perhaps one 
 parish is enough for the full employment of this power ; if not, the 
 neighbourhood will take off the redundance ; if not, there are three 
 quarters of the world which are heathen, and want his aid. There, 
 at least, is full occupation for the wealth of his mind and his purse. 
 It is, therefore, arithmetically true, that so much as he devotes to 
 the secular object he withdraws from the spiritual. It is not more 
 clear, that a man having a large hungry farm for his livelihood, and 
 a garden for his recreation, that as much manure as he spreads on 
 his garden, of so much he deprives his fields. He grows more flowers 
 and less bread. But this is not all : it is not merely the quantum 
 of his force which he thus wastes ; that is the least part of his loss. 
 He touches the world at one point, and the infection reaches him by 
 the contact. If he resembles others in his house, why not in his 
 table ? why not in his society ! why not in anything, which is not 
 positively wrong ?
 
 92 MAURITIUS SLAVE TRADE. [^t. 36-40. 
 
 "Now every word of this sermon is inconsistent with my own 
 practice ; but never mind that ; truth is truth, whoever speaks it. 
 " It may be a way — 
 
 ' Out of this wreck to rise in, 
 A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it.' 
 
 " But why do I write all this to you ? Solely because I have the 
 highest opinion of you and your powers. I have watched your 
 course now for many years with interest ; and I am very desirous 
 
 that the Rector of A should equal the curate of B . The 
 
 objects of vulgar care, and the pursuits of vulgar ambition, are not 
 for you. I hope to see in yoiu* parish an example of what may be 
 done by a clergyman having talents, income, influence, out of the 
 common order. It just occurs to me that all this may be misapplied, 
 that your house has not, and is not likely to have, a tittle of your 
 affections. Be it so — then give this letter to your housemaid to light 
 your fire with. But if you suspect that you want the friendly free- 
 dom of this hint, in the midst of your present prosperity, keep this 
 as a memorial of the attachment of — yours, very truly, 
 
 " T. F. Buxton." 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 1826, 1827. 
 
 The year of trial granted by the Government to the 
 Colonial Legislatures suspended during that time all anti- 
 slavery proceedings. This interval was not thrown away 
 — Mr Buxton at once turned his whole muad to a new, 
 though kindred question. 
 
 A few months previously, he had received a visit from a 
 gentleman of the name of Byam, who had been commis- 
 sary-general of the police at the ]\Iauritius, and had come 
 home full of indignation at the abuses he had there wit- 
 nessed. He asserted that the slave trade was still prevail- 
 ing in that island to a frightful extent; that the inhabit- 
 ants and the authorities were alike implicated, and that 
 the labouring slaves were treated with atrocious cruelty ; 
 the greater, because their loss could be so easily supplied. 
 
 The Mauritius had not been ceded to England by France 
 till 1810, whicli was three years after the abolition of the 
 British slave trade. It appeared that, partly owing to this 
 circumstance, and partly to the facilities afforded by the 
 jiroxiinity of the African coast, the traffic had never been 
 put down in those quarters, except during one or two brief 
 intervals.
 
 1826,1827.] TOUCHING INCIDENT. 93 
 
 To these startling assertions, Mr Buxton could not yield 
 immediate belief; still less could he refuse to investigate 
 them. From Mr Byam, and other individuals, especially 
 General Hall, (who had been a governor of the Mauritius,) 
 he obtained a large mass of documents, and after a long and 
 ruinute study of their contents, he came to the certain con- 
 viction that the charge was true. He was appalled by the 
 greatness of the evil thus unveiled to him. It was no light 
 matter, however, to begin a struggle with a foe so distant 
 and inaccessible, and at first he shrank from the undertak- 
 ing. But how could he know of such iniquities without 
 standing up against them ? At that time he little thought 
 that in six years British slavery would be done away. He 
 expected a far more lengthened contest ; and, meanwhile, 
 should these horrors be permitted to continue 1 — No ! A 
 3'ear's leisure lay before him, and, in conjunction with Dr 
 Lushingion and others, he took the task in hand. 
 
 A plan of operation was soon laid, in accordance with 
 which ;Mr (now Sir) George Stephen, a stanch and here- 
 ditary Abolitionist, took upon himself the labour, demand- 
 ing no less skill than perseverance, of discovering and exa- 
 mining witnessess.* The first of these was INIrs Byam's 
 English maid-servant, who, while in the Mauritius, had 
 done various little acts of kindness to the slaves. 
 
 One incident related by her powerfully affected Mr Bux- 
 ton. In the middle of the night preceding the departure of 
 Mr Byam's family from the island, she was awakened by 
 a low voice casing to her from without ; she rose, and was 
 terrified at finding the whole courtyard filled with negroes. 
 They beseechingly beckoned her to be still, and then, fall- 
 ing upon their knees, they implored her, as she was going 
 to the country of Almighty God, to tell Him of their suffer- 
 ings, and to entreat Him to send them relief. 
 
 On the 9th of May 1826, Mr Buxton brought the Mauri- 
 tius C[uestion before Parliament. In the commencement of 
 
 * Mr Buxton used to relate a conver- piest people in the whole world. He 
 
 sation as having occurred at his own finished by appealing to his wife. 
 
 table, in connexion with this question, "Now, my dear, you saw Mr T 's 
 
 which much amused him. A gentle- slaves; do tell Mr Buxton how happy 
 man who had been resident in the they looked." "Well, yes," innocent- 
 Mauritius, one day dining with him, ly replied the lady, "they were very 
 
 laboured to set him right as to the con- happy, I'm sure only I used to 
 
 dition of the slaves, assiu-ing him that think it so odd to see the black cook 
 
 the blacks there were in fact the hap- chained to the fireplace '. "
 
 94 MAURITIUS SLAVE TRADE. [^t. 36-40. 
 
 his speech he reminded the House that the traffic in slaves 
 was by law a felony. " And yet," he continued, — 
 
 " I stand here to assert, that in a British colony, for the last four- 
 teen years, except during General Hall's brief administration, the 
 slave trade in all its horrors has existed : that it has been carried 
 on to the extent of thousands, and tens of thousands; that, except 
 upon one or two occasions, which I will advert to, there has been a 
 regular, systematic, and increasing importation of slaves." 
 
 He then proceeded to prove this statement, adducing the 
 evidence of one admiral and four naval captains, one general 
 and three military officers, five high civil officers, and two 
 out of the three governors of the island ; and then, from 
 calculations which he had very fully and accurately made, 
 he proved every one of the eight distinct heads of accusa- 
 tion which he had brought forward. By a return of the 
 number of the black population in the Seychelles, he shewed 
 that there was only one alternative, either the slave trade 
 had been carried on, or every female in that group of islands 
 must have been the mother of one hundred and eighty chil- 
 dren.* He concluded his speech by sketching with a power- 
 ful hand the features of the trade which he was attacking — 
 and let the reader, while perusing the following extract, 
 remember, that the same barbarities are going on at this 
 very day, between the West coast of Africa and Cuba. 
 After describing the system of capture, &c., he said, — 
 " The fourth step is the voyage, the horrors of which are beyond 
 description. For example, the mode of packing. The hold of a 
 slave vessel is from two to four feet high. It is tilled with as many 
 human beings as it will contain. They are made to sit down with 
 their heads between their knees : first, a line is placed close to the 
 side of the vessel ; then another line, and then the packer, armed 
 with a heavy club, strikes at the feet of this last line in order to 
 make them press as closely as possible against those behind. And 
 BO the packing goes on ; until, to use the expression of an eye-wit- 
 ness, ' they are wedged together in one mass of living corruption.' 
 Then the stench is so dreadful that I am assured by an officer, that 
 li(j](liiig his head for a few moments over the air-hole, was almost 
 fatal to his life. 'J'hus it is that — suffocating for want of air, — 
 Btai-ving for want of food, — parched with thirst for waTit of water, — 
 these poor creat\ire3 are comj)el!ed to perform a voyage of fourteen 
 hundred miles. No wonder the mortality is dreadful ! " 
 
 He obtained a select committee to inquire wliether the 
 slave trade had, or had not, existed in the Mauritius. But 
 its investigations were soon arrested by the dissolution of 
 
 * UaiiHard, V. D. xv. p. 1030.
 
 1823, 1827.] ELECTION AT WEYMOUTH. 95 
 
 Parliament ; and in the beginning of June Mr Buxton found 
 himself involved in a stormy election at Weymouth, which 
 at that time, with the united borough of Melcombe Regis, 
 returned four members. The non-electors and the mob 
 were in favour of the Tory candidates, and resorted to main 
 force to prevent the polling of Whig votes ; — their plan 
 was, with the aid of a large body of stout Portlanders, to 
 obtain possession of the town hall, at the further extre- 
 mity of which the booth was placed. No Whig voter 
 reached the table without a violent struggle and very rough 
 treatment. Some were delayed for hours, first by this 
 means, and then by the objections urged by the lawyers ; 
 and so great was the success of all this, that on one day 
 but six votes were polled. To remedy in some degree this 
 evil, the mayor extended the hours of polling from four to six 
 o'clock. This measure was extremely unpopular with the 
 mobility of the place, who of course wished the election to 
 last as many days as possible. It was rumoured that an 
 attack on the town hall was in contemplation, and a strong 
 body of cavalry was called into the town. The mob, how- 
 ever, were not dismayed. At four o'clock they assembled in 
 great force, and suddenly rushed with a loud yell upon the 
 door of the town hall. Some passed under the horses of 
 the soldiers, others pressed between them ; the ranks of the 
 cavalry were broken, and the crowd poured in. At the 
 same moment a great number of them ran over the leads of 
 the houses adjoining the town hall, lowered themselves 
 from the roof into its upper windows, and came tumbling 
 into the hall in crowds, rushing towards the polling booth 
 with loud shouts, and pressing back the gentlemen to the 
 further end. Most of these scrambled out of the windows 
 at once ; a few kept their seats tUl they were almost suf- 
 focated by the mob, but were forced at last to jump from 
 the windows into the arms of their friends below. Subse- 
 quently a large number of special constables were sworn in 
 and placed in the hall. On two successive days the mob 
 broke all their staves to pieces, and drove them out with 
 great violence. 
 
 Mr Buxton kept himself as clear as possible from these 
 tumults : his own election was throughout secure, and he 
 was personally highly popular. He is described as being
 
 96 LETTERS. [JEr. 36-40. 
 
 received, even by tlie Tories, " witli loud sliouts of appro- 
 bation ; crowds came about Mm to shake hands ; indeed," 
 adds the letter, "he does not appear to have a person 
 against him in the town." 
 
 The election lasted fifteen days, at the end of which he 
 was at the head of the poll by a majority of sixty-nine ; 
 but the other Whig candidate was defeated, and three Tories 
 came in. 
 
 The rest of the year 1826 was chiefly employed in the 
 laborious task of preparing Mauritian evidence for tho 
 ensuing session. For this purpose Mr G. Stephen visited 
 eveiy part of England, where soldiers were quartered, who 
 had at any time served in the Mauritius. The depositions 
 of both officers and men, at HuU, Norwich, Liverpool, 
 Chelsea, and other places were taken ; thus the testimony 
 was produced of 320 witnesses of good character, who all 
 spoke to the fact of a trade in slaves. Early in 1827 Mr 
 Buxton moved for a renewal of the committee ; but, at the 
 request of the Government, his motion was deferred till the 
 26th of May; and, meantime, he strenuously exerted him- 
 self in the further investigation of the case. 
 
 In his speech on the 9th of May 1826, he had accused 
 the authorities of the island of culpable neglect. This was 
 highly resented by the late governor. Sir Eobert Farquhar, 
 who, in the beginning of May 1827, complained in tlie 
 House of Commons of the charge, and dared Mr Buxton to 
 the proof. This entailed upon him what he had hoped to 
 avoid, the painful necessity of individual crimination. But 
 he was already almost sinking under the weight of business, 
 and the anxiety with which the whole case was fraught 
 proved at length more than he could bear. His health 
 slicwcd decided spnptoms of giving way, and his physician, 
 l)r Farre, strongly urged him to have recourse to rest and 
 quiet ; but he Avas far too deeply impressed by the suffer- 
 ings of his unhappy clients, to desert their cause while a 
 ])articlc of strength remained. In spite of the feelings of 
 illness which rapidly gained groimd upon him, he spent the 
 week previous to that on which his motion was to come on 
 in severe and harassing labour ; and on the Saturday he 
 made a summary of the evidence which had been collected 
 of the atrocious cruelties practised upon the negroes,
 
 1826, 1827.] ALARMING ILLNESS. 97 
 
 botli in their importation, and afterwards, when tliey 
 were reduced to slavery. In the course of that unhappy 
 morning, he was so completely overwhelmed with anguish 
 and indignation at the horrors on which he had been 
 dwelling, that he several times left his papers and paced 
 rajiidly up and down the lawn, entirely overcome by his 
 feelings, and exclaiming aloud, " Oh, it 's too bad, it 's too 
 bad ! I can't bear it." 
 
 The frightful result which ensued, is thus forcibly de- 
 scribed by himself, some months afterwards. : — 
 
 " Last spring the whole force of ray mind, and all my 
 
 faculties, were engaged in preparing for the Mauritius question. I 
 had pledged myself to prove that the slave trade had existed and 
 flourished in that colony ; that the state of slavery there was pre- 
 eminently cruel, and that persons of eminence had tolerated these 
 enormities. It is, I think, but justice to myself to admit, that the. 
 object was a worthy one ; that I had embraced it from a sense of 
 duty ; that my mind was imbued with deep affliction and indigna- 
 tion at the wrongs to which the negro was exposed. I spared no 
 pains, and no sacrifices, in order to do justice to my cause ; and the 
 anxiety and labour which I endured preyed upon my health. About 
 the middle of May I went to Upton, in order to improve it by 
 change of air ; but I was then imder the pressure of disease, and 
 my physician described my state by saying, " you are on fire, though 
 you are not in a blaze." I concealed from others, I did not even 
 admit to myself, the extent of my indisposition. I could not doubt 
 that I felt ill, but I was wilhng to suppose that these were nervous 
 feelings, the effects of fatigue of mind, and that they would vanish, 
 as they had often done before, when the exertion was at an end. 
 
 " On Saturday, May 19, I took a survey of the case of cruelty 
 to the negroes, and for two or three hours I was distressed beyond 
 measure, and as much exasperated as distressed, by that scene of 
 cruelty and horrid oppression. I never in my life was so much 
 moved by anything, and I was so exhausted by the excitement, that 
 I coidd not that day renew my exertions. The next morning I awoke 
 feeling very unwell. My wife and the family went to a place of 
 worship?, and my daughter remained with me ; I think, but I have 
 not any clear recollections, that I told her about twelve o'clock to send 
 for Dr Farre. I have a vague idea of my wife's return, but beyond 
 that all is lost to me. The fact was, that I was seized with a fit of 
 apoplexy, and it was not till the following Wednesday that I shewed 
 any symptoms of recovery. I am glad that the first object I no- 
 ticed was my dear wife. I well remember the expression of deep 
 anxiety upon her countenance, and I am sure I had seen it before. 
 To her delight I spoke to her, and the words I used were those that 
 expressed my unbounded affection towards her. Thanks to her 
 care, joined to that of my brothers and sisters, and of the medical 
 attendants, I gradually recovered. I remember, however, feeling
 
 98 DELIGHT IN THE PSALMS. [^t. 41, 42. 
 
 some surprise, as well as mortification, at finding that the day fixed 
 for my motion on the Mauritius had passed. Then came the slow 
 progress of recovery; we went to Cromer; all my pursuits, such 
 at least as required mental exertion, were given up, but hence re- 
 sulted some leisure for reflection. I was deeply affected by the love 
 and mercy of God, that he had been pleased to spare my life, that he 
 had not called me suddenly into His presence. I hope and believe 
 that I have not lost the sense of His goodness. I never can advert 
 to this warning without acknowledging from my heart, that His 
 goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life." 
 
 So deeply had the subject wMcli caused this alarming 
 illness become rooted in his mind, that almost his first 
 words, on recovering full consciousness, were uttered in a 
 decided tone, to the efi"ect that he must get up and go to 
 the House, to bring forward his motion on the Mauritius. 
 When told that the day was already past, he would not 
 give credit to the statement, tUl it was put beyond doubt 
 by reference to the newspaper in which the proceedings of 
 the House on the evening in question were reported. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 1827, 1828. 
 
 The Mauritius case was of course dropped for the year. 
 Mr Buxton returned to Cromer HaU, and for a long time 
 was obliged to relinquish all sedentary occupation. This 
 interval of unaccustomed leisure was not thrown away ; his 
 mind, cut off from its usual employments, turned to review- 
 ing its own state ; and while removed from active life, he 
 was in fact strengthening by reflection and prayer those 
 principles from which his actions sprang. Much larger 
 portions of time were given to religious meditation, and to 
 a diligent study of the Holy Scriptures. The marks in his 
 jjible attest his ready application of the Word of God to 
 liis own necessities. Dates are placed against many pas- 
 sages and memoranda of circumstances to which they IkkI 
 been particularly appropriate. There also exists a large 
 portfolio full of texts, copied by him and arranged under 
 diiferent heads. He greatly delighted in the Psalms; and 
 on one occasion, when, to use his own words, "some cir- 
 cumstances had arisen which involved him in distress of 
 mind," he thus writes : —
 
 1827, 1828.] THOUGHTS ON PRAYER. 99 
 
 " Finding comfort no where else, I resorted to the Bible, and par- 
 ticularly to the Psalms ; and truly can I say with David, ' In my 
 distress I called upon the Lord, and he delivered me.' The Psalms 
 are beautiful and instructive to every man who really studies them ; 
 but anguish of mind is necessary to enable us fully to comprehend 
 and taste the pathos and emphasis of their expressions. In David's 
 descriptions of his own anxieties, I found a most lively picture of 
 my own mind. In his eloquent language I uttered my prayers, 
 and, thanks be to God, I was also able to use for myself his songs 
 of rejoicing and gi-atitude. I have spent some hours almost every 
 Sunday over the Psalms, and I have extracted, under separate heads, 
 David's prayers — his assurance that his prayers were heard and 
 answered— his thanksgivings, &c. ; and I meditate, at some future 
 period of leisure, preparing some work for pubHcation on the 
 subject. 
 
 " This I may, I believe, say, that these studies have had a strong, 
 and I trust not a transient, effect upon my mind. I recur to the 
 Bible with a pleasure and sometimes with a delight imknown to me 
 before. When I am out of heart, I follow David's example, and fly 
 for refuge to prayer, and he furnishes me with a store of prayer ; 
 and I hope ' I love God ' better, ' because he hath heard the voice 
 of my supplication ; and therefore will I call upon him as long as I 
 live ; ' and I feel what the text expresses, which I found in my 
 textbook for this day, ' The Lord is my defence, and my God is the 
 rock of my refuge.' And this lesson I have in some degree learnt, 
 that afflictions, as we consider them, are sometimes the chief and 
 the choicest of mercies." 
 
 WTien in JSTorfolk the woods were his cliosen retreat for 
 the enjoyment of the " di\T.ne silence," as he called it, of 
 the country. He would take his small well-marked Bible, 
 and wander among the trees reflecting deejDly on what he 
 read. Although he never kept a diary, yet after his ill- 
 ness, he was in the habit of frequently committing his 
 thoughts to paper, and a very large number of these com- 
 munings with his own heart still remain. Many of them 
 are preparations for prayer, according to a habit, which he 
 thus mentions in one of his papers about this period : — 
 
 " There is a practice which I have found highly beneficial, and 
 should any of my children ever see this memorial, I earnestly ad- 
 vise them to adopt it. 
 
 " I am in the habit of preparing the substance of my private and 
 family prayers. I believe that we are far too extempore in that 
 duty ; not that I recommend any verbal prejDaration, but a medita- 
 tion upon the points on which we wish to ask the help of God. 
 The want of this seems to me to lead the mind to wander about, 
 and rather to fill our mouths with a train of words to which we are 
 accustomed than our hearts with a sense of our necessities. I, at
 
 100 LETTER TO LORD W. BENTINCK. [^t. 41, 42. 
 
 least, have found the habit of reflecting on what I shall ask for, 
 before I venture te ask, highly serviceable. 
 
 " I am bound to acknowledge that I have always found that my 
 prayers have been heard and answered — not that I have in every 
 instance (though in almost every instance I have) received what 
 I asked for, nor do I expect or wish it. I always qualify my 
 petitions by adding, provided that what I ask for is for my real 
 good and according to the will of my Lord. But with this qualifica- 
 tion I feel at liberty to submit my wants and wishes to God in 
 small things as well as in great ; and I am inclined to imagine that 
 there are no ' Uttle things ' with Him. We see that His attention is 
 as much bestowed upon what we call trifles, as upon those things 
 which we consider of mighty importance. His hand is as manifest 
 in the feathers of a butterfly's wing, in the eye of an insect, in the 
 folding and packing of a blossom,* in the curious aqueducts by 
 which a leaf is nourished, as in the creation of a world and in the 
 laws by which the planets move. 
 
 " To our limited powers some things appear great and some in- 
 considerable ; but He, infinite in all things, can lavish His power 
 and His wisdom upon every part of His creation. Hence I feel per- 
 mitted to ©O'er up my prayers for everjrthing that concerns me. I 
 luiderstand literally the injunction, 'Be careful for nothing, but 
 in everything — make your requests known unto God ; ' and I cannot 
 but notice how amply these prayers have been met. Grant, then, 
 Lord, that I may never fail to pour forth all my burthens, cares, 
 wishes, wants, before Thy throne, that I may love to seek Thy help." 
 
 About this time Mr Buxton heard, to his great satisfac- 
 tion, that Lord WUliam Bentinck was appointed Governor- 
 general of India, and immediately went up to town to dis- 
 cuss with him the subject of suttee, and to urge him to 
 employ his authority for the abolition of that atrocious 
 practice. A short time afterwards he addressed the follow- 
 ing letter to him : — 
 
 "Cromer Hall, October 22, 1827. 
 
 " My Dear Lord, — The short interview which I had with you 
 lately has been to me a matter of sincere gratification. I now feel 
 that I can leave in your hand the question, whether the British 
 Government ought, or ought not, to tolerate the annual sacrifice of 
 several hundred females; and I have the satisfaction of knowing 
 that you will do everything which oxight to be done. When Mr 
 Canning was going to India, I ventured to trouble him on the busi- 
 ness : his answer was the same as I received from you. He assured 
 me that the subject should engage his most serious attention, and 
 that what he could ilo should be done. I have always lamented that 
 lie did not go to Imlia, fiom a conviction that his great mind would 
 have been ill at case while such horrid customs as suttee and infan- 
 
 * Ho continunlly pointed out tho poodness ; so that Mrs lloarc's cbil- 
 pncking of liud.f uikI Iouvus .as bcauti- drcu used to call the early spring buds 
 tul iirouls of the Uivjjiu wisdom and " Uncle 13u.\lou's semioua."
 
 1827, 1828.] NORTHREPPS HALL. 101 
 
 ticide prevailed. Forgive me for saying, that I feel the same confi- 
 dence in your Lordship as I did in Mr Canning." 
 
 It is well known that, soon after Lord William Bentinck 
 reached India, he abolished the practice of suttee at a 
 single blow. Mr Buxton hailed the news with delight and 
 thankfulness. The evil had indeed been extirpated by the 
 hand of another ; but he had the satisfaction of feeling that 
 no opportunity had been wasted by him of forwarding that 
 happy event. 
 
 In the course of this winter, Mr Buxton was obKged, 
 with much regret, to leave Cromer Hall ; the proprietor, 
 ilr Windham, ha\dng determined to replace it by a new 
 mansion for his own residence. There was no house equally 
 suitable near Cromer; but being much attached to the 
 neighbourhood and very unwilling to leave it, he gladly 
 accepted Mr E. H. Gurney's offer of Northrepps Hall, 
 which, although smaller than his last place of abode, yet 
 possessed many points of attraction ; especially that within 
 a quarter of a mile Uved his sister Miss S. M. Buxton, and 
 his cousin Miss Gurney. 
 
 Northrepps Cottage, the residence of these ladies, stands 
 in a deep secluded dell, opening on the fishing village of 
 Overstrand and the German Ocean. The path to it from 
 the hall lies through the woods ; and thither he always 
 turned his steps when his spirits needed to be enlivened, or 
 his anxieties shared ; well knowing that his presence would 
 ever be hailed with eager delight. 
 
 He was scarcely settled at Northrepps, when he was called 
 to London to resume his parliamentary labours, which had 
 been so unfortunately cut short in the preceding year. 
 His exertions were first called for on behalf of the West 
 Indies. The year of probation granted by Mr Canning to 
 the Colonial Assemblies had now more than expired ; and 
 they had done nothing towards the mitigation of slavery. 
 Of the eight bUIs recommended for their adoption by Mr 
 Canning, not one had been accepted by any colony, except 
 Nevis. But the Government were not yet discouraged ; 
 they were still anxious to persuade, rather than to compel. 
 Nor could they be blamed for trying every method of 
 suasion, before resorting to force. The right of the mother 
 country to legislate directly for her colonies had, in one
 
 102 DEBATE ON SLAVERY. [^t. 41, 42. 
 
 great instance, been successfully defied. It miglit, therefore, 
 have been no wise policy to attempt coercion, till all gentler 
 methods had been tried in vain. Accordingly, in 1828, Sir 
 George Murray, as a last experiment, despatched circular 
 letters to all the Colonial Assemblies, once more urging them, 
 in strong terms, to effect for themselves the required 
 improvement in the condition of their slaves. Most truly 
 did ;Mr Stanley state, in his speech on the 14th of May 1833, 
 that it was not " till all means had been exhausted ; till 
 every suggestion had been made ; till every warning had 
 been given ; and had not only been given in vain, but had 
 been met by the Colonial Legislatures with the most deter- 
 mined opposition, that England took the work of recon- 
 structing West Indian society into her OAvn hands." These 
 circular letters were " entirely disregarded." 
 
 Had Mr Buxton been in vigorous health, he would cer- 
 tainly have done what he could to obtain bolder measures 
 from the Government, but his bodily powers failed him. 
 
 On the 6th of March, Mr WUmot Horton brought for- 
 ward a motion for the publication of some minutes relative 
 " to the Demerara and Berbice Manumission Order in Coun- 
 cil," to prove the desirableness of its not being enforced 
 
 Mr Buxton had brought together some documents from 
 which to answer Mr Wilmot Horton ; but he became so 
 unwell that he was obliged to give up the attempt to peruse 
 theiu, and went down to the House of Commons without 
 any intention of speaking. To his dismay he found, on 
 reaching the House, that Mr William Snaith was the only 
 Abolitionist present beside himself Mr Wilmot Hor- 
 ton's opening speech was extremely able, and >vas listened 
 to by Mr Buxton with feelings of real distress, while he 
 looked in vain towards the door of the House, in the hope 
 that Mr Brougham or Dr Lushington might come to the 
 rescue. 
 
 At length a bitter tirade against the Abolitionists from 
 one of tlieir opjjonents stung him to the quick ; and he rose 
 to reply, begiuniiig witli a somewhat severe conunent "on 
 
 the acrimonious speech of the hon. member for C , who, 
 
 after a long lecture on command of temper and control of 
 tongue, has ended," he said, "by charging us with exaggera- 
 tion, misrepresentation, quackery, and nonsense."
 
 1827, 1828.] .. MR BUXTON'S REPLY. 103 
 
 " I must confess, however, that he has sneered at us in very good 
 company; the rights of man and the laws of God were equally visited 
 by his sarcasm. Now, I defy him to prove any one instance of mis- 
 representation. I challenge him to abstain from general condemna- 
 tion, and to put his finger upon that particular in which we have 
 deceived the country. 1 will do so with regard to him — I will mark 
 out those particulars in which he himself has been guilty of misre- 
 l^resentation." 
 
 He then went tliroiigh the common assertions of the 
 "West Indians — they had denied the existence of flogging; 
 of Sunday markets ; of obstacles to manumission ; he proved, 
 and from the evidence of the West Indiaas themselves, that 
 these did exist. His opponents were for ever dwelling on 
 the happiness and comfort of their slaves — 
 
 "But how comes it," he asked, "that these happiest of the happy 
 decrease at a rate entirely unequalled in the history of man ? . . . . 
 The hon. member has indignantly censured my hon. friend (Mr W. 
 Smith) for introducing the phrases ' rights of men and laws of God ; ' 
 and I do not wonder that he is somewhat provoked at these obnoxious 
 exj^ressions ; for one Cannot think of slavery without perceiving that 
 it is an usurpation of the one and a violation of the other. The right 
 hon. gentleman, the mover of this motion, tells us that no one can 
 reconcile the promise we have given for the extinction of slavery 
 with a promise which we have also given for a due consideration of 
 the rights of the parties interested. We are reduced to the alterna- 
 tive, he tells us, of sacrificing the planter to the interests of the slave, 
 or the slave to the interests of the planter. If we are in that predi- 
 cament, and must decide for the one or the other, my judgment is 
 unequivocally in favour of the slave. And it is a consideration of 
 the ' rights of man, and the laws of God ' which leads me to that 
 imequivocal decision." 
 
 He concludes in these words : — 
 
 " I would give the negro all that I could give him with security ; 
 I would do every possible thing to mitigate and sweeten his lot : and 
 to his children I would give unqualified emancipation. Having done 
 this, I would settle with the planters. I am a friend to compensa- 
 tion — but it is compensation on the broadest scale Do you 
 
 ask compensation for him who has wielded the whip ? Then I ask 
 compensation for him who has smarted under its lash ! Do you 
 ask compensation for loss of property, coutigent and future ? Then 
 I ask compensation for unnumbered wrongs, the very least of which 
 is the incapacity of possessing any property whatever. If compen- 
 sation be demanded, we re-echo the demand. It is that which we 
 most fervently desire ; only let it be just compensation, dealt out 
 for the many who have suflered, and not confined to the few who 
 may sufifer in one particular." 
 
 One of his friends writes to Mr J, J. Gurney : — 
 " The whole House was carried along by his earnestness, cheered 
 
 1
 
 104 MAURITIUS SLAVE TilADE. [JEt. 41, 42. 
 
 him veliemently, and listened attentively. He was much congra- 
 tulated on the success of his reply." 
 
 Little more could be done towards advancing the anti- 
 slavery question during this session. Mr Brougham, who 
 had intended to bring it forward, was prevented from doing 
 so by ill health ; and Dr Lushington's duties were too 
 onerous to permit of his carrying on the struggle single- 
 handed ; but during the last year he and Mr Brougham 
 had been engaged in their arduous contest on behalf of the 
 free people of colour in the West Indies, endeavouring to 
 rescue them from their painful and humiliating position. 
 At length, in the session of 1828, their efforts were crowned 
 ■v\dth complete success. An Order in Council was issued, 
 by which they were at once placed on the same footing 
 in every respect as their white fellow-citizens ; a measure 
 iraught with momentous consequences to the welfare of the 
 West Indies. 
 
 On the 20th of March, Mr Buxton had an interview 
 with Mr Huskisson. He offered to put Government into 
 possession of all his documents and evidence respecting the 
 slave trade at the Mauritius, if they would go on with the 
 inquiry, as he was unable to do so, and he strongly urged 
 them to take it up. Mr Huskisson replied, that they would 
 consider about it, and desired that documents relating to 
 the cruel usage of the slaves should be sent to him. He 
 also assured Mr Buxton that the trade was now stopped, 
 that the registry was enforced, and that some Orders in 
 Council would be sent out and put into operation. 
 
 No other steps were at present taken by the Government ; 
 they had previously sent out a commission of inquiry, and 
 further measures were deferred till its report should have 
 been received. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 1828, 1829. 
 ALTiiOTinit unable to take much part in public affairs 
 during this session, yet, at the instance of the Rev. Dr 
 Philip of tlie Cape of Good Hope, Mr Buxton made an 
 effort in behalf of the Hottentots winch was crowned with 
 easy and conipU'te .success. 
 
 Eight ycar.s before, Dr Philip had been sent out by the
 
 1828, 1829.] THE HOTTENTOTS. 105 
 
 London Missionary Society, on a deputation appointed to 
 inquire into the state of their missions in South Africa. 
 In the course of these investigations he had become ac- 
 quainted with the grievous state of degradation in which 
 the Hottentots were held by the inhabitants of the colony, 
 and especially by the Dutch boors. One hundred and 
 seventy years before, they had been the undisturbed pos- 
 sessors of that fertile tract of country which is now com- 
 prehended under the name of the " Cape Colony." In 
 1652, the first Dutch settlement was formed, and the 
 curse of Christian neighbours fell upon the hapless owners 
 of the land. 
 
 The first germ of the treatment they met with may be 
 seen in the following extracts from the journal of Van 
 Riebech, the Dutch governor : — 
 
 " JDecemher 13, 1652. 
 
 " To-day the Hottentots came with thousands of cattle and sheep 
 close to our fort, so that their cattle nearly mixed with ours. We 
 feel vexed to see so many fine head of cattle, and not to be able to 
 buy to any considerable extent. If it had indeed been allowed, we 
 had opportunity to-day to deprive them of 10,000 head, which, how- 
 ever, if we obtain orders to that effect, can be done at any time, and 
 even more conveniently, because they will have greater confidence 
 in us. With 150 men, 10,000 or 11,000 head of black cattle might 
 be obtained without danger of losing one man ; and many savages 
 might be taken without resistance, in order to be sent as slaves to 
 India, as they still always come to us unarmed." 
 
 A day or two later we find Van Riebech " wondering at 
 the ways of Providence, which permitted such noble animals 
 to remain in the possession of heathens." It was not long 
 before he thought it best to thwart the ways of Providence 
 instead of wondering at them ; and the system wliich he 
 began was carried out by the Dutch, and afterwards by the 
 English, until the Hottentots had sunk to the lowest depths 
 of misery. Nothing can be more painful than the accounts 
 given of them at the time of Dr Phihp's first visit to the 
 Cape. They were not like the negro slaves, the legal pro- 
 perty of certain individuals ; they were at the mercy of all 
 who chose to oppress them and compel their services : not 
 even possessing that degree of protection which the hateful 
 system of slave ownership afibrds. Their tribes were public 
 property, and any one might seize as many of them as he 
 pleased for his private use. Their rich lands and vast
 
 106 MR PHILIP'S RESEARCHES. [^t. 42, 43. 
 
 herds of cattle had long since become the spoiler's prey. 
 At the caprice of the Dutch boors they were subjected to 
 the heaviest labours, to every species of harassing annoy- 
 ance, to every kind of revolting punishment. Beneath this 
 grinding misery their numbers had dwindled, their persons 
 had become dwarfed, and their minds brutalised, till the 
 very negro slaves looked down on them as lower and baser 
 drudges, far below the level of mankind. 
 
 In 1822 Dr Philip returned for a short time to England, 
 and communicated this information to Mr WHberforce, Dr 
 Lushington, and Mr Buxton, who agreed that the former 
 should move in the House for a commission of inquiry to 
 proceed to the Cape ; as also to the Mauritius, and to 
 Ceylon : this was accordingly done, and in 1824 we find 
 Mr Buxton moving for the reports received from these com- 
 missioners ; which afforded some information of value. In 
 1826 Dr Philip again came back to England, and after a 
 time published his " Researches in South Afi'ica," which 
 excited much attention ; and he urged Mr Buxton to bring 
 the case of the Hottentots before Parliament. Although 
 feehng great interest in the subject, Mr Buxton was too 
 deeply engrossed by the Mauritius question to turn aside at 
 that time. In 1828, however, he was able to make him- 
 self master of the subject, and gave notice of a motion for 
 an address to the Eang on behalf of the natives of South 
 Africa. 
 
 He writes, July 1828,— 
 
 " I have not yet determined what I shall say about the Hotten- 
 tots. I shall take as the foundation of my argument their legal 
 freedom, prove that they are practically slaves, and demand that we 
 act up to our engagement and make them free ; but it is doubtful 
 if I shall speak. Government will probably give way to my motion, 
 on condition that I abstain from speaking. Terms not to be re- 
 jected, I think." 
 
 To this compromise the Government agreed. Mr Buxton 
 Brought forward his motion without a single comment ; and 
 Sir George Murray, (Secretary for the Colonies,) then rose 
 and briefly expressed the concurrence of the Government. 
 The address was unanimously agreed to, and tlie Hottentots 
 were free ! Mr Buxton walked up to Dr Philip, after the 
 motion had been carried, and said, "Ah, these men do not 
 know the good tlicy have done !"
 
 1828,1829.] ORDER IN COUNCIL. 107 
 
 In a hasty note to Mrs Upclier, lie thus announced the 
 triumph : — 
 
 "July 17, 1S2S. 
 " 1 have only time to say that we have recorded a resolution of 
 the House of Commons, with regard to the Hottentots, which is 
 their Magna Charta ; and which will spread liberty, and, with hberty, 
 a thousand other blessings over that great and growing territory." 
 
 THE REV. DR PHILIP TO T. F. BUXTON, ESQ, 
 
 "July 16, 1828. 
 " My Dear Sib, — The more I reflect upon the decision of Parlia- 
 ment on Tuesday evening, the more I am struck with its importance. 
 It is intimately connected with all the great questions now before 
 the public, which have for their object to ameliorate the condition 
 of the coloured population in every region of the globe ; it is one of 
 the principal stones in the foundation of that temple which Mr 
 AVilberforce has been so long labouring to rear for the protection 
 of the oppressed ; and it has given a strength and an elevation to 
 the building, which will render the whole more secure, and its 
 future progress more easy. I wish you could be present at our 
 missionary stations when the glad tidings shall be announced; you 
 would see many a sparkling eye, many a cheek furrowed with tears 
 of joy, and hear your name associated with many a thanksgiving to 
 God for this unexpected deliverance." 
 
 It was a singular coincidence that, only two days after 
 this motion had passed in Parliament, Major General 
 Bourke, the just and humane Governor of the Cape, pro- 
 mulgated an ordinance, (well known afterwards as the 
 Fiftieth Ordinance,) by which the Hottentots were placed 
 on the same footing as the other inhabitants of the Colony. 
 As soon as Sir George Murray heard of this step, an Order 
 in Council was issued, (January 15, 1829,) ratifying the 
 ordinance, and, moreover, prohibiting any future alteration 
 of it by any colonial authority. When Mr Buxton, Mho 
 had spent the autumn and winter at Northrepps, came back 
 to London for the session of 1829, he found the business 
 thus happily concluded. 
 
 He sent this intelligence to Mr J. J. Gurney ; but begins 
 his letter by alluding to the excitement which prevailed on 
 account of the Duke of Wellington's expressed intention to 
 take into consideration the removal of the Catholic disabi- 
 lities : — 
 
 "Fehrmry 9, 1S29. 
 
 " We had a slave meeting at Brougham's yesterday; and S. 
 Gurney woiold go with me, to prevent them from putting too much 
 upon me. Brougham, Mackintosh, Denman, Spring Rice, Wm,
 
 108 THE HOTTENTOTS SET FREE. [^T. 43, 44. 
 
 Smith, Macaulay, were the party. They were all in the highest 
 glee about the CathoUcs; Brougham particularly. They seemed 
 exquisitely delighted with the vexation of the Tories, who are, and 
 have reason to be, they say, bitterly affronted ; and the great ones 
 among them vow they will have an apology, in the shape of some 
 good place, or they will never forgive the Duke for letting them go 
 down to the House as strong Protestants, and insisting upon their 
 returning, that very day, &tout Catholics ! They say they do not 
 mind changing their opinions, — that is a duty which they must 
 sometimes pay to their chiefs, — but they think it hard to be obliged 
 to turn right-about-face at the word of command, without a moment 
 being given to change their convictions. 
 
 " The Duke is very peremptory. The story goes, that he said to 
 
 Mr , who has a place under Government, ' We have settled the 
 
 matter, and hope you like it.' Mr said, he would take time to 
 
 consider it. ' Oh yes ! you shall have plenty of time ; I don't want 
 your answer before four o'clock to-day. I shall thank you for it 
 then ; for, if you don't like our measures, we must have your office 
 and seat, for somebody else.' 
 
 " To-morrow we are to have a fierce debate. The High Church 
 party are very furious, and talk of calling upon the country ; and I 
 expect we shall have a good deal of bitterness. 
 
 "As to slavery, we determined not to fix our plans for a week, in 
 order to see the turn this Catholic business is likely to take, for the 
 House will hear nothing else now ; but we are to have a day fixed 
 for Brougham's motion before Easter. He wanted me to begin on 
 the Mauritius ; but I said, ' No ! if they are not in a temper to hear 
 you, I am sure they will not hear me.' 
 
 " Spring Rice said that he had seen General Bourke, late Gover- 
 nor of the Cape of Good Hope, who tells him that Government 
 have sent out an Order in Council, giving entire emancipation to 
 the Hottentots. If this proves true I shall be excessively delighted, 
 and shall never say again that I am sorry I went into Parliament ; 
 not that I did much in the business, but I flatter myself I did a 
 little. Do get M. to read Dr Philip's book on South Afi-ica. I 
 think you would not repent if you did the same. I am very well, 
 and in good spirits, though somewhat worried about the tiresome 
 mines, which want attention." 
 
 His delight was well-founded. From the day that the 
 Fiftieth Ordinance became law, the Hottentots were raised 
 to the level of their white oppressors, they Avcre protected 
 Ly the same laws, they could own projicrty, they could de- 
 mand wages in return for their labour, they could no longer 
 be seized "like stray cattle" if they left their village bounds ; 
 in short, they were become a iiee i)eoplc ; and since that 
 day civilisation and Christianity, with all their retinue of 
 ])lessings, have flourished among them. For a while dismal 
 forebodings and fierce complaints rang among the Colonists
 
 1828, 1829.] KAT RIVER SETTLEMENT. 109 
 
 at tliis sudden inroad upon their oppressive privileges ; but 
 after a few slight commotions, both their anger and their 
 fears died away : and the experience of eighteen years has 
 abundantly approved the wisdom as well as the justice of 
 this important measure. 
 
 In 1833 Colonel BeU (the Government Secretary for the 
 Colony) stated that, — 
 
 " As to that large proportion of the Hottentots who remained in 
 the service of the Colonists as free labourers, their character and 
 condition are every day improving. Those settled at the Kat River, 
 as small farmers, have made a very surprising progress. A large 
 portion of them, from being an indolent, intemperate, and improvi- 
 dent class, have, since a field was opened for virtuous ambition, 
 become industrious, sober, and prudent in their conduct." 
 
 In the same year Captain Stockenstrom (Chief Civil Com- 
 missioner of the Eastern Province) writes : — 
 
 " The Hottentots at the Kat River have cultivated an extent of 
 country which has surprised everybody who has visited the location. 
 .... Instead of apathy or indifference about property, they have 
 become (now that they have property to contend for) as covetous 
 and litigious about land and water as any other set of Colonists. 
 They have displayed the utmost anxiety to have schools established 
 
 among them They travel considerable distances to attend 
 
 divine service regularly. Their spiritual guides speak with delight 
 of the fruit of their labours. Nowhere have temperance societies 
 succeeded half so well as among this people. They have repulsed 
 all the attacks of the Caffres. They pay every tax, like the rest of 
 the Colonists. They have rendered the Kat River by far the safest 
 
 part of the frontier As far as the land is arable, they have 
 
 made a garden of it from one end to the other." 
 
 According to Colonel Wade,* 
 
 '"They had, in 1833, completed 55 canals for irrigation, 44 of 
 which measured 24 miles ! Their works," said he, "give the best 
 evidence that the Hottentots can be as industrious, and are as 
 capable of contending with ordinary difficulties, as their fellow-men." 
 
 Dr Philip had described the Hottentots in bondage, as 
 " In a more degi'aded and imbruted state than they were in a 
 state of nature; trampled upon by their masters; held as a perqui- 
 site of office by the Colonial Governor; regarded by the negro 
 slaves as only fit to be their drudges ; despised by the Caffres, and 
 by all the natives in a state of freedom ; and represented by travel- 
 lers as scarcely possessing the human form, as the most filthy, 
 stupid beings in the world; as scarcely to be considered belonging 
 to the human race." 
 
 He thus describes them after their settlement at the Kat 
 River : — 
 
 * Evidence before Aborigines' Committee.
 
 110 LETTERS. [JEt. U 
 
 " The Kat River now presents a scene of industry, sobriety, and 
 decency, not surpassed by the peasantry of any country in Europe. 
 They are building themselves good houses ; they are very decently 
 clothed; their industry is admitted, even by their enemies." 
 
 In 1839, Mr Backhouse mentions his having visited the 
 Hottentots, and found them "dressed like decent, plain 
 people of the labouring class in England. In the sixteen 
 tchools of the Kat River district, they had about 1200 
 scholars, and an attendance of about 1000." * 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 1830. 
 
 Mr Buxton's own health was much restored during the 
 winter of 1829 ; but illness in his family caused him severe 
 anxiety. On leaving home, when this was in a great 
 measure relieved, he writes : — 
 
 "I was very sorry that I was only able to write that short, shabby 
 letter, which I sent this morning. I never before felt my heart so 
 entirely riveted to home; everything else seems flat, except that 
 centre of my afiFections. 
 
 " But now for a history of my travels. Nurse and I were very 
 good friends, and had some instructive conversation upon the pleas- 
 ing subjects of wounds, operations, &c. ; and I presume I won her 
 heart, as she began and concluded every sentence with, ' My dear 
 sir.' I lapsed, however, at last, into my books. It was a wretched 
 night ; but I was none the worse for that, as my greatcoat and snow 
 shoes kept me from cold. I soon set myself to a review of late 
 events, and that led me to go over my list of the mercies which have 
 been granted to me, and a grand list it appears. When I go over it 
 item by item, the account seems surprisingly large. Mercies of all 
 
 sorts Then, children to my heart's content; brothers and 
 
 sisters the same ; friends the same ; station in life and circumstances 
 the same; the public objects to which I have been directed the 
 same ; and there are fifty other dittos of the same order. Then my 
 own life, so often preserved, and my children, given to me, as it were, 
 a second time. I read some lines lately in one of those wicked news- 
 
 I)ai)erH, (as called them,) the WvikJij Diajmtrh, which I must get 
 
 hold of again. I fr)rget the lines ; but their substance was, that ere 
 long death shall open his casket ; and they end thus : — 
 
 ' Then sliall I sec my jewels to my joy, my jewels me.' 
 
 ■ " Then come personal mercies of the same sort. I have clear, 
 undouhting views of the efficacy of ])rayer. I know the Holy Spirit 
 will be granted to tiiosc who ask for it, and I see wonderful mercy, 
 love, and grandeur developed throughout all creation ; and I know 
 
 • Backhoiiso's " Narrative of a Visit to South Africa," p. 186.
 
 1829,1830.] LETTERS. Ill 
 
 that I have a Redeemer ! Upon these grounds, and such as these, 
 I am thoroughly thankful, or rather I perceive that I ought to be so. 
 
 " These thoughts, and hearty prayers for us all, with a fond recol- 
 lection of the dear invalids I had left, carried me to Ipswich ; and 
 after that I cannot give a very clear account of anything, having 
 fallen sound asleep. The snow became so deep, that we were obliged 
 to part with the guard and the bags, who rattled away in a postchaise 
 and four ; while we crawled into the fog of this great town. I 
 dressed at the Brewery ; went to Lombard Street, to Macaulay's, and 
 to the anti-slavery meeting, (we are to meet again at Brougham's on 
 Friday evening, I believe ; so forgive me for not giving you the his- 
 tory of our proceedings ;) then to Dr Lushington ; then to the Real Del 
 Monte; then to dinner at the London Tavern by myself; then to the 
 meeting about the Indian widows, from which I have just returned. 
 
 " I am really eager to know whether the storm produced any 
 wrecks : I trust it did not ; or if it did, that Anna Gurney saved the 
 crew, and is now subjecting them to a second and a greater peril, 
 from repletion at the Cottage. Then the whale ; then Cromer Hall ; * 
 then Mrs Fry. Why, what a wonderful place Cromer is ! This 
 big city cannot supply half as much real important news as little 
 Cromer can furnish. — Your affectionate husband, father, brother, 
 and friend,. T. Fowell Buxton." 
 
 Again, during a second visit to London : — 
 
 " I had a pleasant journey, going outside as far as Bury, for the 
 purpose of satisfying myself \tith surveying the stars. I never was 
 out on a finer night, or was more sensible of the majesty of the 
 spectacle. A man must preach very well indeed before he conveys 
 such a lesson of the greatness of God, and the unworthiness of man, 
 as a view of the heavens discloses. It always strikes me that such a 
 sight turns into downright ridicule and laughter our (in our own 
 eyes) important pursuits." 
 
 TO MRS BUXTON. 
 
 " London, February 9, 1830. 
 " I am in good spirits and health, and not without a sense that 
 mercy and truth and love are about me in my solitude before you 
 
 come What a comfort it is to me that you are all going on 
 
 well. It seems to make all other things easy and light. I have my 
 worries, but I do not regard them. As for the affairs of the mines, 
 which just now are a bit of a torment, I depend upon it, that it will 
 come right ; and as to public matters, they are not at my disposal ; 
 I can only do my best, and leave the result to Him to whom those 
 good causes belong." 
 
 The mining companies alluded to above, to which he 
 belonged, involved him in considerable loss of property, and 
 their affairs were often a subject of anxiety to him. The 
 details would be of course unsuitable and uninteresting to 
 
 * This refers to incidents which had recently occurred — the capture of a largo 
 whale, and a fire at Cromer HalL
 
 112 BEER BILL. [^T. 44. 
 
 the general reader ; but those who had the opportunity of 
 observing his conduct in these transactions, attest that it 
 eminently displayed his clear judgment, his firmness of pur- 
 pose, his ability to resist the infection of panic, and his dili- 
 gent and generous regard to the interests of others. 
 
 Another matter of business that occupied him during 
 this spring was the bill for throwing open the beer trade, 
 to which he thus alludes : — 
 
 TO JOSEPH JOHN GURNET, ESQ. 
 
 " House of Commons, March 19, 1830. 
 
 " I am far from being dissatisfied with the beer revolution. In 
 the first place, I do not know how to be so ; I have always voted for 
 free trade when the interests of others were concerned, and it would 
 be awkward to change when my own are in jeopardy. Secondly, 
 I believe in the principles of free trade, and expect that they will 
 do us good in the long run, though the immediate loss may be large. 
 Thirdly, I have long expected the change. And, lastly, I am 
 pleased to have an opportunity of proving, that our real monopoly 
 is one of skill and capital.* 
 
 " I have a letter from Calcutta, saying that suttee has been 
 suppressed by Lord William Bentinck. Is not this comforting ? I 
 am also not without hopes that Sir G. Murray will do right about 
 
 my Mauritius slaves Peel tells me he is with us about 
 
 capital punishments, but says 'yo<^ must give me time.' On 
 slavery, nothing new. Colonists will do nothing. I am strongly in 
 favour of bolder measures on the part of the Abolitionists, and 
 think they will be taken. 
 
 " I am now attending, and (as you may observe) listening to, a 
 debate on the distress of the nation, meaning to vote against the conspi- 
 racy of High Tories and Radical Whigs, and in favour of Government." 
 
 Our readers will recollect the efforts made in 1821 and 
 tlie following years for the reform of the penal code. Sir 
 James Mackintosh had continually kept the subject in viev.', 
 and had made various attcm})ts, but apparently without 
 success, till Mr Peel, after taking office in 1826, commenced 
 his revisal of the code. He cleared the statute-book of 
 many obsolete and barbarous acts, and arranged and con- 
 solidated the whole body of criminal laws. In the progress 
 of this great work, Mr Peel introduced, in the year 1830, a 
 bill for the consolidation of tlie laws relating to forgery. 
 He, liowevcr, retained the punishment of death in several 
 cases, and, on this point, a strong o])position was raised in 
 
 • Ucfcrring sonio yo.irs iiftorwards it was right ; it broke in ui>on a rotten 
 
 to the ciiormouH «um wliichtlio twelve jiart of our system — I am glad tliuy 
 
 liirt^cst brcworioB ill London had lost ainimtatcd us !" 
 by thl.s beer bill, he remarked, " liut
 
 1830.] THE BANKERS' PETITIOK 113 
 
 Parliament, wMlst out of the House, Mr Sidney Taylor 
 effected a change in public opinion through the columns of 
 the Morning Herald. It had long been Mr Buxton's 
 opinion that death for injury to property was adverse to 
 the interests, as well as to the feelings, of the commercial 
 world in England. It happened that one Sunday morning 
 during this period, he was visited at breakfast by Mr John 
 Barry, who suggested the extreme importance of getting 
 this feeling formally expressed ; whereupon Mr Buxton 
 dictated the following petition : — 
 
 " That your petitioners, as bankers, are deeply interested in the 
 protection of property from forgery, and in the conviction and 
 punishment of persons guilty of that crime. 
 
 '■ That your petitioners find, by experience, that the iniiiction of 
 death, or even the possibility of the infliction of death, prevents the 
 prosecution, conviction, and punishment of the criminal, and thus 
 endangers the property which it is intended to protect. 
 
 " That your petitioners, therefore, earnestly pray that your 
 honourable House will not withhold from them that protection to 
 their property which they could derive from a more lenient law." 
 
 This form of petition was sent to aU the principal 
 towns in the kingdom, and quickly obtained the signatures 
 of firms representing above 1000 bankers. 
 
 It was presented on the 24th May by Mr Brougham, 
 Sir James Mackintosh's amendment to abolish capital 
 punishment for forgery, was, however, lost ; but imme- 
 diately after this defeat Mr Buxton returned into the 
 House, and gave notice (in the name of Sir James Mackin- 
 tosh) of another motion to the same effect on a further 
 stage of the bUl. On this debate a majority was obtained 
 against the punishment of death for forgery ; and, though 
 this decision was reversed by the House of Lords, the 
 question was virtually settled. No execution has since 
 taken place for forgery in Great Britain. 
 
 In succeeding years the infliction of capital penalties 
 was more and more reduced by the efforts of Mr Ewart, 
 Mr Lennard, and others, to whose exertions Mr Buxton 
 always gave, while he remained in Parliament, his stre- 
 nuous assistance ; and it is satisfactory to know that the 
 number of crimes now legally punishable with death is 
 reduced from 230 to eight or nine ; and that, practically, 
 no executions now take place in England or Wales, except 
 for murder.
 
 114 HOPELESS ILLNESS OF HIS SON. [JEr. 44. 
 
 At the close of this summer Mr Buxton Avas called away 
 from his public duties by the illness of his second son, a 
 youth of great promise, "who shewed a tendency to con- 
 sumption.* When the disease suddenly assumed a very 
 alarming character, Mr Buxton writes, after detailing the 
 circumstances : — 
 
 " I felt in the night a deep sense of the goodness of God and un- 
 bounded confidence in Him, and was ready to place my child and 
 everything in His hands. 
 
 " I awoke in the morning under an overwhelming load of distress ; 
 the wretchedness of our present situation burst upon me before I 
 
 had time to collect my consolations My prayer was, first, 
 
 heartfelt thanks to God for His goodness and mercy ; an acknow- 
 ledgment that He had dealt most lovingly with us in every, every 
 event, an assurance that this stroke, terrible as it seemed, was 
 mercy and love, and I thanked Him for it. Next did I cordially 
 thank Him for Harry's state of mind, so sweet and lovely ; thanked 
 Him that he was evidently a lamb of Christ's fold, and prayed that 
 
 he might be strengthened with might in the inner man The 
 
 text. ' these light afflictions which are but for a moment,' was deeply 
 comforting. Positively, they are heavy, and grievous, and lasting ; 
 but compared with the joys of heaven, light, and but for a moment. 
 The apostle must indeed have been inspired when he formed so 
 sublime a conception of God's presence. 
 
 " My prayer is, that I may never forget this day's lesson. How 
 have I felt the vanity of all earthly things ! How have I panted to 
 become meet for an eternal inheritance ! How have I desired for 
 myself, my wife, my children, my friends, that we might here be 
 the servants of God, desiring nothing but to do His will ; and that 
 hereafter we might form one band of happy ones redeemed by 
 Christ, and enjoying that blessed country, the least of whose privi- 
 leges is, that ' there they are no more sick.' 
 
 " I pray Thee, most merciful Father, that the lesson of to-day 
 may not be forgotten, that we may ever retain to-day's sense of the 
 difference between temporal ajul eternal. I pray Thee only make 
 u.s Thy children, and deal with us as Thou wilt. I give my son 
 unto Thy merciful arms; if Thou wilt, dear Saviour Thou canst 
 make him whole ; but Thou knowest best. Thy will be done. If it 
 be possible reserve him for us : oh, how does the flesh desire it; but 
 far, far more do I desire that Thou wouldst keep him and us within 
 Thy fold. Thou didst hear parents' prayers on earth, oh, hear us 
 now ; but again I feel, Thy will be done. I bow with entire confi- 
 (Icncu to Thy decrees; I am sure that Thou wilt do for the best, 
 for never bo much as to-day did I know Thee to be merciful and 
 gracious, and very loving to all Thy creatures." 
 
 The most lively solicitude and the most sedulous atten- 
 
 • Mr8 Fry DmBmoiitioiiH liini in her cheerful, industrious, clever, very 
 
 diary: "JIu was u child wlm in no aKrcc.i>ile, and of a sweet person." — 
 
 C"nimon dejfreo apiieared to live in (Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 118.) 
 tbo fear and lovo of tbo Lord ; ho was
 
 1830.] LETTER TO HIS SON. 115 
 
 tion proved to be alike in vain. Though the progress of 
 the disease was extremely slow, it was unremitting, and the 
 nursing of this beloved child became the engrossing occu- 
 pation of the autumn. The following paper shews that 
 hope had faded away : — 
 
 "September 19, 1830. 
 
 " I beseech Thee, God, the Creator of the universe, that Thou 
 vvouldst grant me a much more lively spirit of godliness, as the one 
 thing which sweetens life, soothes its cares and its bitter disappoint- 
 ments, and which cheers me in a path which needs something to 
 cheer it. Blessed Lord, hear my prayers on behalf of my beloved 
 child. Oh, how do I desire, how earnestly do I crave that Thy 
 choicest mercies and the treasures of Thy love may be showered 
 upon him. Give him, as he walks through the valley of the shadow 
 of death, the light of Thy countenance, the support of Thy strength, 
 and the comfort of his heavenly Father's presence. May it please 
 Thee to impart to him, flying fast to heaven, a foretaste of the joys 
 which Thou hast prepared. The time of tribulation and the hour 
 of death are approaching. Oh, be near him and us in those dark 
 seasons ; tell him that Thou art beside him, whisper full consolation 
 in his ear. Let Thy Spirit remind him that he is safe in Thy arms, 
 that nothing can really harm him because Thou art his defender. 
 Unto God's gracious mercy and protection I commit my darling 
 child ; the Lord bless him and keep him, lift up His countenance 
 upon him, and give him peace ; and, blessed Lord, make us par- 
 takers of the same peace. If, as we believe, in passing from death 
 unto life he shall exjierience a blessed change, if he is about to 
 enter into the joy of his Lord, if bright scenes of glory, which the 
 dull eye of man hath not seen, are to be his, if he is to spring from 
 languor, and pain, and weariness of the flesh, to perfect peace and 
 joy; if this be the change that awaits him, and surely it is, then let 
 lis patiently, nay, joyfully, transfer him from the arms of earthly 
 parents into the arms of his Father which is in heaven." 
 
 Being obliged to go up to London on the day succeeding 
 that on which this prayer is dated, Mr Buxton writes in a 
 more cheerful strain to the young invalid : — 
 
 "Newmakket, Sejitember 20. 
 
 " Here I am, my dear Harry, and I will make use of my pen while 
 tea is brewing. I have had a pleasant journey. To be sure, I could 
 not read, for it grew dark about the time we got to Pearson's ; but 
 though I could not read out of a book, I read all the better a sermon 
 out of the stars ; and a noble sermon it was — ' the heavens declare 
 the glory of God ; ' and it ended thus, ' What is man, that thou art 
 mindful of him ? ' One part of the sermon I recollect :— Vanity, 
 vanity, says the Preacher, all is vanity. — Nay, there, Solomon, with 
 all your wisdom, you are wrong ! It may be vanity to pursue plea- 
 sure, to gratify appetite, or to hunt after renown. It may be vanity 
 to buy fine houses, preserve jjheasants, plant trees, acquire an estate 
 with the hiUs from the Lighthouse to Weybourne for a boundary;
 
 116 DEATH OF HIS SON. [^t. 44. 
 
 but it is not vanity, it is excellent good sense, to serve with the heart 
 and soul, and might and main, the Master and Creator of those 
 heavens ; it is not vanity to conquer evil passions, and stifle unholy 
 repinings ; it is not vanity to be patient and submissive, gentle and 
 cheerful, during a long and weary season of trial ; it is not vanity, in 
 the midst of trials and privations, to spread around a loving and a 
 holy influence, so that the sufierer becomes the teacher and the com- 
 forter; comforting us and teaching us that unsafe we cannot be, 
 while we are in the arms of a most merciful and tender Father.' So 
 said the preacher to whom I was listening, and many other things 
 he said, which I forget at this moment, but I recollect he wound up 
 one paragraph thus — 'Look at that cluster of stars, conceive the 
 power which framed and the wisdom which guides them, and then 
 say, if you can — I am able to improve upon His dispensations; I can 
 change His decrees for the better ; not His will, but mine be done ! ' 
 I will say no more about the sermon, except that the preacher drew 
 a most striking and lucid likeness of Northrepps, painting to the life 
 each member of the family ; so graphic were his touches, that I never 
 felt more strongly what a blessing it is to belong to it. When we 
 had done with the Hall, he sketched the Cottage, and in the gravest 
 manner possible, gave a sly hit or two, which made me smile in the 
 midst of my approval. But now I must conclude. May the God of 
 hope preserve you in all peace ; help, cheer, enUven, strengthen you, 
 and gladden you with the consolations which come from Jesus Christ 
 <jur Lord ! Good night, dear Harry, and all at Northrepps." 
 
 Under every mitigation wMcli intense parental solicitude 
 could supply, the invalid sank peacefully, and died in the 
 17tli year of his age, on the 18th of November. He was 
 buried in a retired spot vpithin the ruined chancel of Over- 
 strand Church. Upon a tablet is inscribed his name with 
 that of his brother and his four young sisters who had died 
 previously ; and the following lines written by his father : — 
 
 "Full of bright promise, youthful, courteous, brave; 
 Gncc in the form, mind beaming from the eye ; 
 All that a mother's fondtst wish ciaild crave 
 Were lent awhile by Ilcaven, .and hero they lie. 
 " Hero lies the wreck, the .'spirit wings her flight,— 
 The ransom'd spirit, to the realms above, 
 Ranges unfottcr'd through tlic fields of light; 
 Rests in the bosom of eternal love ; 
 "Beholds the unnumberM host of angel powers, 
 
 Who, round Jehovah's throne, their antlicnis sing, 
 And joins that kindred band, tlioso lovely (lowers, 
 Cut down and withcr'd in their early spring. 
 " Scones by no tear dist\irb'd, no sin defiled. 
 
 Scenes nor by heart conceived, nor tongue confoss'd, 
 Unvcil'dto thee, dear spirit of our child; — 
 And wo are comfbrtud, for thou art blcss'd." 
 
 "NoiiTiiuErPS Hat,!,, January 30, 1831. 
 "I feci this morning more than usual dejection, partly occasioned 
 jicrhaim by the proHi)ect of leaving this cpiiet place on Tuesday next, 
 aud [dunging once niuro into the distracting cares and hurries of
 
 1830.] SLAVERY. 117 
 
 Parliament and business ; but still more by a most painful picture 
 which suddenly burst upon me yesterday. I took the boys, Edward, 
 Edmund, and the two Upchers, to shoot on the Warren hills opposite 
 the coast. The ground was covered with snow, the sea was dark and 
 fretful. I went along the lower side, and turned up one of the most 
 distant hillocks, and there I placed myself. And then in a moment 
 a picture burst upon me, which made this one of the most melan- 
 choly moments of the last melancholy year. On that same hillock 
 about the same day two years back, I stood. Nature seemed as if 
 she had not changed. The same surface of white beneath my feet, 
 the sea bearing the same blackening aspect, the gamekeepers and 
 dogs in the same hollow, and the boys exhibiting the same eagerness; 
 n.ll was the same with one sorrowful exception. Dearest Harry was 
 nearest to me on the former occasion ; his quick eye perceived a wild 
 duck sailing near the sea, and we observed it alighting in a pond near 
 the farm below us. I sent him, full of life and alacrity as he was, 
 to secure the bird, while I stood and watched his manoeuvres to get 
 within shot unobserved. Then again his exulting return with the 
 bird in his hand, and the pleasure I felt at his pleasure— and now I 
 could see nothing but the churchyard where his bones repose. Dear 
 fellow ! how large a portion of my hope and joy lies there : how has 
 the world changed with me since that hour ! But there is this 
 comfort, if we are left to sad recollections, he is gone to eternal secu- 
 rity and peace." 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SLAVERY. 1830. 
 
 During the last three years the leaders of the anti-slavery 
 movement had been forced into comparative repose ; but 
 the movement itself went on. The nation was turning its 
 attention more and more to the question of slavery ; inquir- 
 ing into its true nature, and receiving impressions from the 
 facts and arguments brought forward in the Anti-slavery 
 Reporter, and other publications. 
 
 At the period we have reached, although in some quarters 
 a clamorous spirit of opposition still prevailed, yet the 
 anti-slavery feeling had been steadUy making way. The 
 planters, in fact, by their invincible obstinacy, had chilled 
 the sympathy with which many had been inclined to regard 
 them. They had all along been playing a losing game. 
 The Government would gladly have left the colonial legisla- 
 tures to work out for themselves the needful reforms in their 
 system : they had hurled back the quiet suggestions of the 
 Government with every expression of defiance and con-
 
 118 MITIGATING MEASURES. [^t. 44. 
 
 tempt ; they liad punished the rebel negroes with a severity 
 v/hich shocked every feeling of humanity ; they had con- 
 demned Smith to the gallows, and thus turned the Inde- 
 pendents against them ; they forced Shrewsbury to fly for 
 his life, and the Wesleyans were aroused ; the Baptist chapels 
 were razed to the ground, and the Baptists became their 
 enemies. 
 
 Mr Buxton had early foreseen this result. In his speech 
 on the persecutions of Mr Shrewsbury, he exclaimed — 
 
 " Proceed, then, faster and faster ; you are doing our work ; you 
 are accelerating the downfall of slavery. A few more such triumphs, 
 a few more such speaking testimonies to the merits of your system, 
 and the people of England with one heart will abhor it, and with one 
 voice will dissolve it." 
 
 While they were thus exasperating one class after another, 
 the planters stimulated the exertions of their opponents by 
 the vehement abuse which they poured out upon them. To 
 the ceaseless charges of falsehood and hypocrisy, the Aboli- 
 tionists replied, by laying bare first one and then another 
 feature of the system ; and thus a series of impressions 
 was made upon the public mind, which at length wrought 
 a full conviction. 
 
 In 1830, these views, which had been slowly expanding, 
 suddenly put on a new and more definite form. 
 
 Like all who begin to climb towards great objects of 
 attainment, Mr Buxton had at first taken the lower emi- 
 nences in the path before him to be the highest it would 
 reach. At first, he had not questioned that emancipation 
 must be a disastrous boon to the blacks, unless previously 
 trained to enjoy it. Thus in his opening speech, in 1823, 
 he expressly said: — 
 
 " The object at which we aim is the extinction of slavery. Not, 
 however, the rapid termination of that state — not the sudden eman- 
 cipation of the negro, but such preparatory steps, such precautionary 
 moasuroH, as by slow degrees, and in the course of years, first fitting 
 Rud (jualifyiiig the slave for the enjtjyment of freedom, shall gently 
 conduct us to the annihilation of slavery." 
 
 But this declaration had been made seven years before, 
 when, to use his own words, " We did not know, as we now 
 do, that all attempts at gradual abolition are utterly wild 
 and visionary." 
 
 SiJicc that time the conduct of the colonists had plainly
 
 1830.] AMELIORATION XOT POSSIBLE. 119 
 
 shewn, that there was no hope of the negroes being raised 
 to a fitness for liberty, luhlle they tvere still slaves. This 
 could not be done, at any rate, without the hearty co- 
 operation of the planters ; and all co-operation the planters 
 had refused. Nay, even had they turned to the work of 
 improving their human property, for the sake of having it 
 taken from them, it may yet be questioned whether the inhe- 
 rent nature of the system would not have forbidden success. 
 Either you must have compulsion, fruitful in abuses, and 
 debasing to character, or you must have the natural and 
 wholesome inducement of wages. 
 
 " Slavery," said Mr Buxton upon one occasion, "is labour extorted 
 by force. Wages, the natural motive, are not given, but their place 
 is supplied with the whi]). In this House discussions frequently 
 take place as to what slavery is, and what it is not ; but one thing- 
 it is by the confession of all men — it is labour extorted by force 
 
 Under the most mitigated system, slavery is still labour obtained by 
 force ; and, if by force, I know not how it is possible to stop short 
 of that degree of force which is necessary to extort involuntary 
 exertion. A motive there must be ; and it comes at last to this — 
 inducement or compulsion ; wages or the whip." 
 
 The evil, then, being, from its very nature, incapable of 
 much amelioration, and the planters thus set against all 
 reform, it was time for the anti-slavery leaders to relin- 
 quish the hope of making mitigation the first step to free- 
 dom. Not soon, nor without a struggle, was that hope 
 given up ; so plausible does the proposition seem, that " no ' 
 people ought to be free till they are fit to use their free- 
 dom." " Yet this maxim," says an illustrious wiiter, " is 
 worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go 
 into the water till he had learnt to swim. If men are to 
 wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, 
 they may indeed wait for ever ! " * 
 
 "What, then, was to be done? should things be left as 
 they were ? To Mr Buxton the answer was plain. He 
 held it to be sheer robbery for one man to hold in bondage 
 the person of another ; he thought it a crime in itself ; he 
 knew that its offspring was wrong and Avickedness ; and he 
 could not shrink from the risk of doing it away. 
 
 The conviction that slavery coidd not be slowly modified, 
 with a view to its ultimate extinction, but must be rooted 
 out, and that speedily, wTOught a thorough change in the 
 
 * Macaiilay's "Essays," vol. 1. p. 42. "Milton." 
 
 K
 
 120 SLAVERY TO BE PUT DOWK [^t. U. 
 
 policy of tlie anti-slaveiy leaders. They had been lopping 
 the branches ; they now struck at the root. In 1823 they 
 had sought to better the slave's condition, by lightening 
 some of his burdens. In 1824, the plan was mooted for 
 the purchase, emancipation, and apprenticeship of the negro 
 children. The next three years were spent in discussions 
 on Smith's death and the treatment of the rebel slaves ; on 
 the oppression of the free people of colour ; on the non- 
 admission of negro evidence ; on Shrewsbury's banishment, 
 and the destruction of his chapel. During 1828, 1829, 
 and 1830, the Government had been still vainly striving to 
 induce the colonial legislatures to begin the work of ameli- 
 oration with their own hands. But a more stirring time 
 was at hand. The Abolitionist party was grown too strong 
 and zealous to shrink from any measures which its leaders 
 might bring forward. In their minds bolder views had 
 ripened, and needed only to be once spoken out in words, 
 to become principles of action. In May 1830, a crowded 
 meeting assembled in the Freemasons' Hall, with Mr Wilber- 
 force in the chair. The first resolution, moved by Mr 
 Buxton, expressed that "no proper or practicable means 
 should be left unattempted for effecting at the earliest 
 period the entire abolition of slavery throughout the British 
 dominions." It was seconded by Lord Milton, who had 
 throughout supported the cause with all the weight of his 
 station and character, though by so doing he had placed 
 himself in opposition to the administration of which his 
 father was a member. Other speeches and resolutions 
 followed in the same strain, till at length ^Mr Pownall rose 
 to declare in a few vigorous words that temporising mea- 
 sures ought at once to be abandoned. " The time," said 
 lie, " is come when avc should speak out, and speak boldly, 
 our determination — that slavery shall exist no longer." 
 These words embodied the fcehiig which already pervaded 
 the anti-slavery party, and from this time immediate 
 emancipation became its avowed object. 
 
 A meeting held in Eduiburgh, in the course of the same 
 year, gave a further im[)ulsc to public feeling. After an 
 eloquent address from Mr (afterwards Lord) Jeffrey, urging 
 the meeting to aim at nothing short of " abolishing slavery 
 at the earliest practicable period," Dr Andrew Thomson
 
 1830.] MEETINGS IN LONDON AND EDINBURGH. 121 
 
 broke in with, a vehement protest against any further pre- 
 texts for delay, exclaiming, " We ought to tell the legisla- 
 ture, plainly and strongly, that no man has a right to 
 property in man, — that there are 800,000 individuals 
 sighing in bondage, under the intolerable evUs of West 
 Indian slavery, who have as good a right to be free as we 
 ourselves have, — that they ought to be free, and that they 
 must be made free ! " 
 
 These bold expressions excited such contending feelings, 
 that the meeting broke up in confusion, but only to re- 
 assemble a few days later, when, a most eloquent speech, 
 having been made by Dr A. Thomson, a petition for im- 
 mediate emancipation was adopted, to which 22,000 signa- 
 tures were rapidly subscribed. 
 
 But while the Abolitionists were for pushing forwards, 
 and doing what must be done at once, the Government 
 had no desire to accelerate its pace. It was still determined 
 to plod on in the old track ; its patience had not as yet 
 been wearied out by the utter hopelessness of the task it 
 had undertaken. It still hoped that the planters might be 
 won over by gentle treatment. No doubt, they had baffled 
 its plans, they had trampled under foot its suggestions ; but 
 it was stiU fain to humour their prejudices and put trust in 
 their good intentions. And even after the accession of 
 Earl Grey to power, there seemed but little chance that the 
 Whig Government, however friendly to emancipation, would 
 undertake its accomplishment. But Mr Buxton would 
 leave no chance untried. Early in 1831 he stated his in- 
 tention to move a resolution for the complete abolition of 
 slavery, but declared that he would " most readily leave 
 the matter in the hands of Government, if Government 
 would take it up." To this offer no reply was made. 
 
 It is to this subject that the following letter alludes, 
 addressed to a member of the administration : — 
 
 "J^n7 6, 1831, 
 
 "I feel bound to tell you that, upon the most attentive 
 
 consideration, I shaU feel compelled to withhold my concurrence 
 from any resolutions which do not declare ' the extinction of slavery ' 
 to be their object. I am aware that I do not go further in detesta- 
 tion of slavery than his Majesty's Government; but perhaps a long 
 and laborious investigation may have led me to entertain a deeper 
 Bense of the practical evils of the system. In my mind, thesa
 
 122 PETITIONS. [^T. U. 
 
 amount to nothing short of a crime ; and, if it be a crime, the way 
 to deal with it is, not to strip it of some of its worst features, but 
 to abandon it altogether. 
 
 " I confess I distrust all ameliorations of slavery. If the Govern- 
 ment resolve to undertake them, theirs will be the responsibility ; 
 and if they succeed, theirs exclusively the merit. 
 
 " I believe their intentions to be perfectly honest, and that they 
 will act resolutely in carrying those intentions into execution. For 
 these and for other reasons, it gives me the greatest pain to be un- 
 able to yield my opinions to theirs. I am sure if I act thus, it is 
 not from obstinacy, or from imwUlinguess to meet their wishes ; but 
 it is from fidehty to the cause itself, and to the friends of the cause, 
 to whom I am pledged to bring forward a motion, not for the miti- 
 gation, but for the extinction, of slavery. I beg you to believe that 
 it is with reluctance I thus bring myself forward, and that it is only 
 as acting in some sort on behalf of a large body in the nation, that I 
 presume to trouble you beforehand with the line of conduct I shall 
 adopt." 
 
 A few days later, in presenting, among 500 petitions 
 against slavery, one subscribed by the Society of Friends, 
 he said : — 
 
 " I have great pleasure in presenting this petition from that body ; 
 as they were the first persons in the country, who promulgated the 
 doctrine that the buying, selling, or holding of slaves was contrary 
 to the Christian religion. Forty years ago they presented the first 
 petition for the abolition of the slave trade, and eight years ago they 
 presented the first petition for the abohtion of slavery." * 
 
 It was a part of Mr Buxton's policy to avail himself as 
 little as possible of the evidence furnished by men favour- 
 able to emancipation ; he always strove to draw his state- 
 ments from the speeches and writings of his opponents, or 
 immediately from official reports. In this branch of his 
 labours (and it was no small one) he derived much assistance 
 from the great knowledge and practised sagacity of Mr 
 !Macaulay, and also from the secretary of the Anti-slavery 
 Society, Mr Thomas Pringlc, whose poetical writings are 
 well known. Mr Piingle's originality, his admirable English 
 fctyle, his diligence, tact, and temper, rendered good service 
 to the cau.sc. Ik'ing ready to catch a hint from any quar- 
 ter, they frequently tracked documents of groat value into 
 the Colonial Office, and then by reiterated motions Mr 
 Buxton usually succeeded in bringmg them-to light. 
 
 • Georgo Fox (the fimmlcr of Qu:i- cruelty towai-ilH tlieni, ns the manner 
 
 kcriwiii). wlien in liiirlculncH, urged of .sotiio lias been and is." — (Sco "A 
 
 the overseerH " t'> deal n.ildly and l'i)]mlar Life of George Fox." C. 
 
 goutly V ith tbo ncgroca, and not to use Giliiiii, 18iy.)
 
 1820.] DECREASE OF SLAVE POPULATION". 1-3 
 
 In this way vast funds of information had been collected ; 
 and between the sessions of 1830-31, Mr Buxton ransacked 
 all his stores for evidence relative to the decrease of the 
 slave population. Having completed his calculations, he 
 laid them before the House on the 15th of April. 
 
 In the commencement of his speech, he assured the House 
 that he had not the slightest feeling of hostility towards the 
 AVest Indian proprietors, nor the slightest disposition to 
 cast reproach upon them ; and he disclaimed any wish to 
 rest his argument on cases of individual atrocity, though 
 abundance of them might be brought forward. 
 
 He proceeds : — 
 
 " But, amid the conflicting statements as to the condition of the 
 slaves, it would be extremely desirable to find any fair and unequi- 
 vocal test of their condition. There is such a test — in the rate at 
 which the slave population has increased or decreased. It is a 
 doctrine admitted by all parties, that, under all circumstances, except 
 those of extreme misery, population must increase. Such is the law 
 of nature, and it is conformable to the experience of aU mankind. 
 That law of increase may be interrupted, but it can be interrupted 
 only by causes of extreme misery. 
 
 " The question, then, is, whether in the fourteen sugar-growing 
 colonies the slave population has increased, has been stationary, or 
 has decreased ? The answer is, it has not increased, it has not been 
 stationary, it has decreased. Not only has it decreased, but it has 
 decreased at a rate so rapid, that I confess it surprises me, and I am 
 sure will astonish the House. In the last ten years the slave popula- 
 tion in those fourteen colonies has decreased by the number of 
 45,800 persons." * 
 
 In Tobago, within ten years, one-sixth of the slave popu- 
 lation had perished. In Demerara it had diminished by 
 12,000, in Trinidad by 6000, within twelve years. "The 
 fact is," he said, " that in Trinidad, as the late Mr Marryat 
 observed, ' the slaves die off like rotten sheep.' " These 
 diminutions were exclusive of manumissions. 
 
 He then shewed that, while in slavery the numbers of 
 the negroes decreased thus rapidly, in freedom they were 
 doubling. For example, the free black population of De- 
 
 * In 1835 numerous papers relating They differ in some degree from thoso 
 
 to the statistics of the colonial depen- on which Mr Buxton founded his 
 
 dencies of Great Britain were ordered arf:ument, but they give a still greater 
 
 by the House of Commons to be print- dfcrease. By these tables it appears 
 
 ed. Among them appeared some thatinthosef^ciYTiislandsthedecreasa 
 
 tables, which shewed the yearly de- in the number of slaves (exclusively 
 
 crease of the slave population in eleven of manumissions) had been 60,119. — • 
 
 West India Islands, during a period of (See Pari. Papers, in the Appendix.) 
 twel ve years previous to emancipation.
 
 124 DECREASE OF SLAVE POPULATION. [^t. 44. 
 
 nierara had (exclusive of manumissions) been increased by 
 lialf in fourteen years. And the free negroes of Hayti had 
 increased by 520,000 in twenty years, that is, their num- 
 bers had more than doubled : — 
 
 " Now, sir," lie continued, " if tlie blacks in slavery had increased 
 as the free blacks have increased, the slave population should have 
 added in the last ten years 200,000 to its nunabers; whereas that 
 number has been diminished by 45,000. To keep pari passu with 
 the free blacks, the blacks in slavery should have increased 20,000 
 a year; whereas they have decreased 4000 a year. They should have 
 increased fifty a-day, whereas they have decreased ten a-day. For 
 this efi'ect, this striking exception to the universal law of nature, 
 there must be a specific cause. It could not occur by accident. 
 "What is the cause ? I will tell the House what it is not. It is not, 
 as it has been affirmed to be, any disproportion between the sexes ; 
 any deficiency in the number of females. In 1814, the number of 
 female slaves exceeded that of males by 5000. The cause, therefore, 
 of this decrease in the slave population, is not any disproportion be- 
 tween the sexes ; it is not war sweeping away its thousands ; it is 
 not climate ; it is not soil. If any one thinks that the last two 
 circumstances may operate injuriously upon the slave population, I 
 ask him why, under the same circumstances, the free black popiila- 
 tion has so much increased? Sir, the real cause is the forced labour 
 in the sugar colonies, and nothing else. The law of nature would be 
 too strong for any other cause. It is too strong for climate — witness 
 Bencoolen. It is too strong for war — witness Africa. It is too 
 strong for savage life — witness the Maroons of Jamaica. It is too 
 strong for vice and misery — witness Hayti. All such impediments 
 yield to the law of nature ; but the law of nature yields to the 
 cultivation of sugar in the sugar colonies. Where the blacks are 
 free, they increase. Climate, soil, war, vice, misery, are too feeble 
 to withstand the current of nature. But let there be a change in 
 only one circumstance; let the population be the same in every 
 respect, only let them be slaves instead of freemen, and the current 
 is immediately stopped. 
 
 " I hope the resolutions I intend to submit will appear temperate, 
 although in them I declare myself no friend to ameliorating mea- 
 sures, in which I have no faith. I do not think that by such mea- 
 Bures the mortality can be repressed. Besides, sir, I must tell you 
 tliat I l<K)k upon the enslaving of our fellow-men as a crime of the 
 deepest dye ; and I therefore consider that it should be dealt with, 
 not by iialliatives, but by destroying it altogether." 
 
 He concluded by moving the following resolutions : — 
 "That, in the resolutions of May 1823, the Hf)use distinctly' recog- 
 nised it to be their solemn duty to take measures for the abolition 
 of slavery in the British colonics; that, in the eight years which 
 liave since elajjscd, tli(' colonial assemblies have not taken measures 
 to carry the resolutions of the House into cflect; that, dcc}>ly im- 
 pressed with a Bense of the impropriety, inhumanity, and injustice
 
 1830.] DECREASE OF SLAVE POPULATION. 125 
 
 of colonial slavery, this House will proceed to consider of and adopt 
 the best means of effecting its abolition throughout the British 
 dominions." 
 
 The motion was seconded in an able speech by Lord 
 Morpeth. 
 
 Lord Althorp stated that, although he could not consent 
 to this motion, he thought it was time "to adopt other 
 measures with the colonists than those of mere recommenda- 
 tions," and that he should propose that a distinction in 
 the rate of duties should be made in favour of those Colonies 
 which should comply with the wishes of Government as to 
 amelioration. After an animated discussion, the debate 
 was adjourned. Mr O'Connell, who throughout gave a 
 steady and energetic support to the anti-slavery cause, 
 came across the House, and said, ''Buxton, I see land." 
 The prognostic was tnie ; for although, owing to the disso- 
 lution of Parliament, the debate was not resumed, and the 
 motion therefore dropped, yet to the argument founded 
 upon the decrease of population may be attributed more 
 than to anything else the speedy downfall of slavery. The 
 force of that argument was well understood in Parliament ; 
 accordingly it was vigorously sifted by the opposite party ; 
 but, having been drawn from the returns of registration 
 sworn to by the planters themselves, it was found impos- 
 sible to shake it. The appalling fact was never denied, 
 that at the time of the abolition of the slave trade, in 1807, 
 the number of slaves in the West Indies was 800,000 : in 
 1830, it was 700,000. That is to say, in twenty-three 
 years it had dimmished by 100,000. 
 
 It may here be well to mention, though it be in antici- 
 pation of our history, how fully Mr Buxton's inferences 
 were confirmed by subsequent events. In 1834 emancipa- 
 tion took place, the law of nature resumed its force, the 
 liopulation began to increase, and the census in 1844 proves 
 that in the twelve previous years the black population in 
 fourteen of the islands had increased by 54,000.* 
 
 The Abolitionists are often blamed for the present want 
 of labour in the West Indies. It should be remembered, 
 
 * Not more fhan fourteen of the ■would of course have been far greater, 
 
 islands sent in their returns of popu- especially as Jamaica is not included, 
 
 lation. Had they been received from — (See Pari. Papers in the Appendix 
 
 the whole twenty one, the increase to the Svo edition.)
 
 126 BREWERY DINNER. [iEi. 44. 
 
 however, tliat liad slavery not been abolished, the popula- 
 tion (taking the decrease at its average rate before emanci- 
 ])atiou) would by this time have diminished by much more 
 than 100,000, instead of having increased in the same pro- 
 portion. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 1831. 
 
 In June 1831, several members of the Government, and 
 other gentlemen, came to look over the Brewery in Spital- 
 fields, and afterwards dined there with Mr Buxton, profes- 
 sedly on beef-steaks, cooked in one of the furnaces. Mr J. 
 J. Gurney gives the following account of the party : — 
 
 " Earlham, 12 mo. 23d, 1831. 
 
 . . . . " The Premier, grave and thoughtful as he seemed, did 
 great justice to our dinner. ' Milord Grey,' cried the Spanish Gene- 
 ral Alava to him, as he was availing himself of a fresh supply of beef- 
 steaks (pronounced by the Lord Chancellor to be ' perfect,') — ' MUord 
 Grey, vous etes k votre sixieme.' 
 
 "The contrast between Lord Grey and Alava was curious; the 
 former, the dignified, stiflf, sedate British nobleman of the old school; 
 the latter, the entertaining, entertained, and voluble foreigner. He 
 had been the faithful companion of the Duke of Wellington through 
 most of his campaigns, and now had displayed his tisual energy by 
 coming up aU the way from Walmer Castle, near Dover, in order to 
 help in devouring the product of the stoke-hole in Spitalfields. 
 
 " The Lord Chancellor was in high glee : he came in a shabby 
 black coat and very old hat ; strangely different from the starred, 
 
 gartered, and cocked-hat dignity of the venerable Premier It 
 
 was my agreeable lot to sit between Lord Grey and Dr Lushington, 
 and the latter being occupied by his friend on the other side, I was 
 left to converse with the Premier, which I had the pleasure of doing 
 
 for nearly two hours Wo talked of his long political course, 
 
 and Lord Shaftesbury, who sat next to him, on the other side, 
 complimented him on the subject. 
 
 " Lord Grey. ' I came into Parliament for Northumberland when 
 I was two-and-twenty, and I have been forty-five years a senator.' 
 Of course it was easy to draw the inference that he was sixty-seven 
 years of age. On my expressing the interest I felt for him, and even 
 syiri]>athy, under the burthen he was bearing, he replied, ' I am 
 much too old for it. I would have refused the undertaking, if I 
 could have done so consistently with my duty.' 
 
 " Our next subject was parliauLcntary eloquence. I asked him 
 who, amidst the vast variety of orators whom ho had been accus- 
 tomed to hear, appeared to him to bo the best speaker and most able 
 debater. 
 
 " Lord Grey. ' Beyond all doubt and comparison. Fox. His elo-
 
 1831.] EARL GREY. 127 
 
 quence was irresistible. It came from his heart, and produced a 
 corresponding effect on the hearts of his hearers.' 
 
 " I asked his opinion of Sheridan. The answer was, ' He was very- 
 able, but could not speak without preparation.' 
 
 " I ventured to insinuate that there was no part of a Premier's 
 office more responsible than that of making bishops. He assented, 
 adding, ' You know I have had none to make at present.' We talked 
 of the Bishop of Norwich.* Lord Grey expressed his admiration of 
 his conduct and character, thougli he only knew him in his public 
 capacity. ' I fear the bishop is too old to accept any offer that I can 
 make him, but I assure you that the very first and best thing that I 
 have to give away shall be at his service.' 
 
 " This declaration has since been fully verified, by his ofi'ering to 
 the Bishop the see of Dublin, which the latter, as had been antici- 
 pated, refused; observing, in the words of old Erasmus to the Em- 
 peror of Austria, that dignity conferred upon him would be like a 
 burden laid on a falling horse, ' Sarcina equo collabenti imposita.' 
 
 " When the dimier was ended, I quitted my post by Lord Grey, 
 and joined Buxton, Lord Brougham, and the Duke of Richmond, at 
 the top of the table. Buxton was telling a story on the subject of 
 reform (the only way in which that subject could be mentioned, as 
 the dinner was not political, and Tories were present). ' A stage 
 coachman,' said he, ' was driving a pair of sorry horses, the other 
 day, from London to Greenwich. One of them stumbled, and nearly 
 fell. ' Get up, you horough-mongering rascal, you ! ' said the coach- 
 man to the poor beast, as he laid the whip across his back.' The 
 
 Chancellor laughed heartily at this story. ' How like my Lord 
 
 there was the old horse ! ' said he to me, laughing, and putting his 
 hands before his face, — Lord sitting opposite to us. 
 
 " Buxton now left us, to talk with Lord Grey, whom he very 
 much delighted by praising Lord Howick's speech upon slavery. It 
 was a speech which deserved praise for its honesty and feeling, as 
 well as for its talent. But the old Premier seemed to think that his 
 son had been carried by his zeal rather too far. 
 
 " Something led us (Lord Brougham and myself) to talk about 
 Paley, and I mentioned the story of his having on his deathbed con- 
 demned his ' Moral Philosophy,' and declared his preference for the 
 ' Horse Paulinse ' above all his other works. This led Brougham to 
 speak of both those works. ' Did you ever hear that King George 
 III. was requested by Mr Pitt to make Paley a bishop ? The King 
 refused; and taking down the ' Moral Philosophy' from the shelf, he 
 shewed Pitt the passage in which he justifies subscription to articles 
 not fully credited, on the ground of expediency. ' This,' said the 
 King, ' is my reason for not making him a bishop.' Lord Grey over- 
 heard the Chancellor's story, and confirmed it ; ' but,' added the 
 Chancellor, ' I believe the true reason why George IIL refused to 
 make Paley a bishop was that he had compared the divine right of 
 kings to the divine right of constables !'.... The Chancellor was 
 very cordial, and we were all delighted with his entertaining rapidity 
 of thought, ready wit, and evident good feeling. Nor was it pos- 
 * Dr Bathurst.
 
 128 BREWERY DINNER. [^t. 45. 
 
 Bible to be otherwise than pleased with all our guests, with whom 
 we parted, about eleven o'clock at night, after a flowing, exhilarat- 
 ing, and not altogether uninstructive day," 
 
 Mr Buxton subjoins, — 
 
 " Our party at the Brewery went off in all respects to my satisfac- 
 tion. Talleyrand could not come, having just received an account of 
 Prince Leopold being elected king of Belgium. Brougham said this 
 was a severe disappointment, as his Excellency never eats or drinks 
 but once a day, and had depended on my beef-steaks. 
 
 " The party arrived at about six o'clock, and consisted of the Lord 
 Chancellor, Lord Grey, Duke of Richmond, Marquis of Cleveland, 
 Lords Shaftesbury, Sefton, Howick, Durham, and Duncannon, Ge- 
 neral Alava, S. Gumey, Dr Lushington, Spring Rice, W. Brougham, 
 J. J. Gumey, R. Hanbury, &c., twenty-three in all. 
 
 " I first led them to the steam-engine ; Brougham ascended the 
 steps, and commenced a lecture upon steam-power, and told many 
 entertaining anecdotes ; and when we left the engine he went on 
 lecturing as to the other parts of the machinery, so that Joseph Gur- 
 ney said he understood brewing better than any person on the pre- 
 mises. I had Mr Gow up with his accounts, to explain how much 
 our horses each cost per annum ; and Brougham entered into long 
 calculations upon this subject. To describe the variety of his con- 
 versation is impossible — 
 
 ' From grave to gay, from lively to severe.' 
 
 " At dinner I gave but two toasts, ' The King,' and * The memory 
 of George III.,' whose birthday it was. We had no speeches; but 
 conversation flowed, or rather roared like a torrent, at our end of the 
 table. The Chancellor lost not a moment ; he was always eating, 
 drinking, talking, or laughing ; his powers of laughing seemed on a 
 level with his other capacities 
 
 " Talking of grace before dinner, he said, ' I like the Dutch grace 
 best; they sit perfectly still and quiet for a minute or two. I 
 thought it very solemn.' Again, ' I am a great admirer of the 
 Church ; but tlie clergy have one fault — they grow immortal in this 
 ■world. You cannot think how they trouble me by living so long. 
 I have three upwards of ninety years old; bedridden, bereft of 
 understanding, incapable of enjoyment, and of doing duty ; but they 
 will live, and are keeping men I long to provide for out of their 
 
 benefices. There's and ; I am waiting for an opportunity 
 
 of shewing that I do not forget them, but these old gentlemen 
 tliwart ine : surely there is no sin in wishing that they were gathered 
 to tlicir fathers.' 
 
 " We then talked about the Court of Chancery, and I said, ' I hope 
 to see the day in which you shall bo sitting in your court, and call- 
 ing for the noxt case, and the oflicer of the com-t shall toll you that all 
 the carti'H are <liH])OHcd of : that will bo the most glorious hour of your 
 life.' ' Well,' said ho, ' tiiat you shall see, and see it, too, before the 
 close of the seHsion. Doix'ud ui)on it there shall not be an appeal 
 case in the House of Lords in two months' time ! ' 
 
 " Ho inquired the wages of the diaymen. I told him about 45s.
 
 1832.] ON A SCHOOL OUTBREAK. 129 
 
 weekly ; and we allow them to provide substitutes for a day or two 
 in the week ; but we insist on their paying them at the rate of 26s. 
 per week. ' Yes,' said he, ' I understand ; these rich and beneficed 
 gentry employ curates, and the curates of the draymen get about as 
 much salary as those of the clergy.' 
 
 "After dinner we took them to the stables to see the horses. 
 Somebody said, 'Now the Lord Chancellor will be at a loss; at all 
 events he knows nothing about horses.' However, fortune favoured 
 him, for he selected one of the best of them, and pointed out his 
 merits. Some one proposed that he should get upon his back, and 
 ride him round the yard, which he seemed very willing to do ; and 
 thus ends my history of the Lord Chancellor. 
 
 " Lord Grey looked care-worn, but was remarkably cordial." 
 
 One of Ms nephews had joined in a school outbreak. 
 Mr Buxton thus writes to his father : — 
 
 "NoETHREPPS, January 8, 1832. 
 
 " Your letter reached me to-night, and I lose no time in answer- 
 ing it. 
 
 "As for the 'insurrectionary movements' if you did not take them 
 so seriously, we sho' lA rather be inclined to smile at them. Let me 
 ask you one plain quettlon. Do you really think one bit the worse 
 of the boy for having been one of these rebels ? I do not. Non- 
 resistance to oppression, or supposed oppression, built upon a deep 
 investigation of the tenor of Scripture, and upon the spirit evinced 
 by the Author of Christianitj', is a very high attainment : it is not 
 to be expected from a lad of his age. Again, it is of all things the 
 most difficult to stand against the current of popular feeling, 
 especially where the motive for doing so may be misconstmed into 
 timidity and truckling. 
 
 " In short, if I were his father, I should affectionately and gently 
 remind him, that his fault consisted in a departure from the princi- 
 ples which his parents held. I should instil into his mind, that it 
 was more noble to stand alone, maintaining that course which they 
 would approve, than to perform the most gallant insurgent exploits ; 
 and I should give him to understand, that I expected to hear no 
 more of such proceedings : and, in my own heart, I should be quite 
 at ease on the subject. I certainly should send him back again. 
 I would give the school another trial, and I should whisper in the 
 master's ear, that if another rebellion took place, it must be the fault 
 of the system. 
 
 " The only thing about which I should feel any serious apprehen- 
 sion, would be lest the boy should get indirect praise for his high 
 spirit. I speak from experience. When I was a boy I obtained what 
 then appeared to me to be the glorious discredit of being high-spirited 
 and haughty, and careless of consequences. There is something in 
 this to please the fancy and excite the pride of a boy; and this 
 character, which stands upon the borders of good and evil, made me 
 very fierce and tyrannical. I say this the more freely, because I 
 think I discern in his mother's letters a great deal of sorrow and 
 apprehension at top, but underneath a little secret, sly satisfaction
 
 130 ADVICE ON PEAYER. [^t. 46: 
 
 at her boy's spirit. I send him my love and a sovereign ; and, if 
 you like, you may read him what I say, as to the more noble and 
 manly part, which we expect him hereafter to talie." 
 
 TO HIS ELDEST SON, AT TEINITT COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 " Devonshiee St., May 15, 1832. 
 
 "My mind has much turned towards you of late, and I have 
 thought more than you might suppose of your approaching examina- 
 tion. Not that I am very solicitous about the result, except so far 
 as your heart may be set on success. I should be very sorry to have 
 you damped and disappointed, but for myself I shall be just as well 
 satisfied with you, if you are low in the last class, as if you are high 
 in the first. 
 
 "But I have a piece of advice to give you with regard to the 
 examination, which I am sure will, if attended to, be of service ; and 
 if you remember it, and act upon it, it will be useful, whenever, 
 during your future life, you are about to engage in anything of more 
 than usual importance. Go to God in prayer; lay before Him, as 
 before your wisest and best friend, your care, your burthen, and your 
 wishes ; consult Him, ask His advice, entreat His aid, and commit 
 yourself to Him; but ask especially, that there may be this restraint 
 upon the efficacy of your prayers, — that His will, and not your 
 wishes, may govern the result ; that what you desire may be accom- 
 plished, provided He sees it to be best, and not otherwise. 
 
 " The experience of my life is, that events always go right when 
 they are undertaken in the spirit of prayer. I liave found assistance 
 given and obstructions removed, in a way which has convinced me 
 that some secret power has been at work. But the assurance of this 
 truth rests on something stronger than my own experience. Scrip- 
 ture is full of declarations of the prevalence and efiicacy of prayer, 
 and of the safety of those who resort to it. ' Commit thy way unto 
 the Lord, and He shall bring it to pass.' ' This poor man cried, 
 and tlio Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.' 
 ' Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He will strengthen thy 
 heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.' 
 
 " It is not often I give you my advice ; attend to it in this in- 
 stance. Depend upon it, prayer is the best preparation you can have 
 for your examination, and for everything else." 
 
 CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 When the session of 1832 commenced, the nation was 
 shaken to its centre by the closing struggle on the reform 
 question. The attention of all parties was, however, for 
 a time recalled to the subject of slavery ; first, by the 
 violent irrit;vti(in cKprossed in the colonics at the declaration 
 of Lord Altlioip in the preceding year, that he would "in-
 
 I8D2.] SPEECH AT A PUBLIC MEETING. 131 
 
 sist on tlie enforcement " of ameliorating measures,* and at 
 the consequent order in council issued, with a despatch 
 from Lord Goderich, in November; and secondly, by the 
 news of an alarming insurrection among the negroes in 
 Jamaica, who, from hearing the indignant expressions of 
 their masters against the home government, conceived that 
 " free paper was come," and had been suppressed by the 
 planters. An attempt was made by the latter to implicate 
 the missionaries and some of the clergy in the rebellion of 
 the slaves, and Messrs Gardner and Knibb were actually 
 arrested on the charge, and indictments made out against 
 them. The case, however, against the former completely 
 broke down, and the Attorney-General abandoned the charge 
 against the other. In fact, not one tittle of evidence was 
 ever adduced against them. 
 
 An animated public meeting was held on the 12th of 
 May, at which the venerable Mr Stephen presided. Mr 
 Buxton concluded the address which he made on the occa- 
 sion, in these emphatic words : — 
 
 " When I call to miud the fact that, contrary to the law of nature, 
 in a country friendly to the increase of population, it has diminished 
 with such frightful rapidity, I would tell all who countenance such 
 a system, that they will have to account at a solemn tribunal for 
 the 50,000 murders that have been committed through its agency. 
 When I think of this, and of the cart whip, and of the millions of 
 stripes inflicted by that accursed instrument, I am at a loss for 
 words to express my feelings. When I trace the system through its 
 baleful ramifications, when I contemplate this hideous cluster of 
 crimes, there is but one language, the language of divine inspiration, 
 that can convey what passes within me. ' They are a people robbed 
 and spoiled ; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid 
 in prison-houses ; they are for a prey, and no man delivereth, for a 
 spoil, and no man restoreth.' When we look at the career of afflic- 
 tion of our brother man, for, after all, he is our brother, moulded in 
 the same form, heir to the same immortality, and, although in 
 chains and in suffering, on a level, in the eyes of God, with the 
 proudest noble in that committee which has been appointed to sit 
 in judgment upon him ; when I view him entering life by the desert 
 track of bondage ; when I view him writhing under the lash of his 
 tormentor; when I see him consigned to a premature and unregarded 
 grave, having died of slavery ; and when I think of the preparation 
 which we, good Christian men and women, have enabled him to 
 
 * Aprin5, 1S31. Hansard. Atone tions of the anti-slavery party were 
 
 of the public meetings of the planters stigmatised as "the false and infamous 
 
 in Jamaica, this determination of the representations of interested and in- 
 
 Govemment was affirmed to be "uu- furiattd lunatics." — (See the " Life of 
 
 just and inhuman," while the allega- Wm. Knibb," p. lll.J
 
 132 POSITION OF PARTIES, [^t. 46. 
 
 make for his hereafter, — there can be but one feeling in my heart, 
 one expression on my lips : ' Great God 1 how long, how long, is 
 this iniquity to continue ? ' " 
 
 The position in whicli the Government, the West Indians, 
 and the Abolitionists stood to each other in 1832 was 
 nearly that of equilibrium. The Abolitionists had received 
 a considerable accession of parliamentary force in the late 
 general election, many of the candidates having pledged 
 themselves to take the anti-slavery side. With his hands thus 
 strengthened, Mr Buxton determined to press forward again 
 the resolutions moved in the preceding year, aiming at an 
 abolition of slavery at once speedy and safe. But to this 
 idea of speedy emancipation the ministers were by no 
 means prepared to yield, though they fully admitted the 
 principle that slavery should be finally abolished. 
 
 In the first place, they felt the responsibility which 
 makes men in power so often shrink from a hardy policy. 
 In the second, they were compelled to consult for their own 
 preservation, by conciliating the West Indian party. The 
 immense parliamentary strength of that body must be 
 borne in mind, if we would understand the varied and often 
 bafiied course of the anti-slavery movement during this 
 and the ensuing year. The fact was, that many of the 
 great landowners at home held colonial property also, 
 and inherited with it a natural hatred of that " reckless en- 
 thusiasm," which was bent on taking away their slaves. It 
 was, therefore, the policy of the Government to avoid bring- 
 ing the anti-slavery question to a crisis ; to keep it at 
 arm's length ; and, by preventing it from coming to the 
 test of a division, to escape committing themselves to either 
 one or the other of the opposing parties. 
 
 Against such a policy it behoved the negro's advocate 
 to stand finn. But this was rendered the more difficult to 
 Mr Buxton, by his hearty attachment to Whig principles, 
 and by his personal regard for many members of the Cabi- 
 net. BesideSj, he looked upon the maintenance of the Whig 
 ministry as of almost paramount importance to his own cause. 
 By these coiitciiding considerations the perplexities of his 
 course were greatly increased ; but lie daily becajnc more im- 
 pressed with tlie necessity of vigorous and speedy measures. 
 Deeply versed in the state of the West Indies, it was to him a
 
 1832.] STATE OF THE COLONIES. 133 
 
 tMng plain and undoubted, tliat no policy could be so perni- 
 cious as tliat of hesitation and delay. He tkought that the 
 dangers of rapid emancipation were not nearly so great as they 
 were held to be. He believed that a good police and kind 
 treatment would suffice to prevent those " frightful calami- 
 ties," (the resxilt of such an act,) which Sir Robert Peel 
 " shuddered to contemplate." He boldly stated his belief 
 that the negroes would go to work for wages, as soon as 
 they were released from the terrors of the whip. And that 
 at any rate the Legislature would find it the most hopeless 
 task in the world to do what Lord Althorp called " employ- 
 ing itself most usefully in bringing the slaves to such a 
 state of moral feeling as would be suitable to the proposed 
 alteration in their condition." 
 
 The statistics which he had brought forward in the pre- 
 vious year, appeared to him to demonstrate the utter folly, 
 as well as the utter cruelty of slavery. A system that was 
 killing off the labourers of the colonial islands at such a 
 fearful rate could be of no real good to any one. The best 
 thing to be done, as he thought, would be to get rid of it 
 at once, whatever the cost might be. 
 
 If experience could prove anything, it seemed to him to 
 prove the necessity of a thorough change of policy with re- 
 gard to slavery. For nine years the Government had been 
 trying the gentle means indicated by the resolutions of 
 1823; yet the state of the slaves was not a whit better than 
 it had been nine years before. The mortality was advan- 
 cing with the same rapid strides. Nay, in Demerara, 
 Essequibo, Jamaica, St Christopher's, and St Vincent, the 
 official returns shew that the loss of life was greatest in the 
 last three of the twelve years during which those returns of 
 population were made. The punishments officially reported 
 had never reached a more appalling number. The cases of 
 individual cruelty brought to light in many quarters, but 
 especially in the reports of the protectors of slaves, were as 
 startling and as rife as ever. And as for religious instruc- 
 tion, the rancour of the planters against it, justified by their 
 own doctrine, that it " is incompatible with the existence 
 of slavery," had grown stronger and more violent year by 
 year. Besides this tried hopelessness of producing any real 
 effect by mitigatory measures, there was another still
 
 134" POLICY OF THE GOVEHNMENT. [^t. 46. 
 
 weightier reason for not delaying the day of freedom. In 
 this case, most surely, would indecision be decisive. A 
 moral effect had been produced by the prolonged discussions 
 of the question. The planter had been exasperated to the 
 highest pitch of indignation ; the slave had learnt reflec- 
 tion, but not self-control. A deadly breach lay between 
 them ; and already had some mutterings been heard of the 
 storm, which would surely burst with terrific fury, if steps 
 were not quickly taken to turn its wrath aside.* 
 
 This, then, was the meaning of the struggle we are about 
 to describe. The Government wished to aim at nothing 
 beyond mitigating measures, such as had been proposed in 
 1823. Mr Buxton was resolved to insist upon the abolition 
 of slavery. 
 
 The Government first strove to prevent him from bring- 
 ing his motion forward. Failing in this, they endeavoured, 
 and with success, to add to the resolution which he proposed, 
 the words, " conformably to the resolutions of 1823." To 
 this he offered a strenuous resistance ; and persisted in 
 dividing the House, so as to compel it to declare in the 
 face of the nation, what it really meant to do on this great 
 question. 
 
 The following lettert, written by his eldest daughter to 
 the inmates of Northrepps Cottage, gives the details of all 
 that occurred : — 
 
 " The debate X tas at length actually taken place, and great cause 
 have we to be satisfied with the result, now that we are safe on the 
 other side of it. It is difficult exactly to recall the feelings and 
 opinions of the preceding days ; it was, however, the usual course, — 
 evei-y possible assault from friend and foe to viaJce my father put of]f 
 his motion, and when that was found hopeless, to induce him to 
 soften it down, or not to divide the House. Dr Lnshington was of 
 opinion that it would endanger the cause to persevere, and differ- 
 ence of opinion with him is worse than anything to my father. The 
 Government were also most pressing, and the terms they offered 
 extremely tempting. On Tuesday morning my father and Dr 
 Lnshington were a long time with Lord Althorp and Lord Howick, 
 botli of whom used every argument and almost every entreaty. I 
 believe he did not reply much at the time, but was cruelly beset, 
 
 • This idea of a goncnil revolt of t Tliis is tlie first of a series of let- 
 
 tlio iicgTueH wtts a source I'f constant tcrs, addressed to tlio simio indivi- 
 
 distrcsH to Mr Jluxtdn. "The Kun is duals, to which wo shall bavo IVo- 
 
 cockod and on the HlioiiMer," said ho, quont oocasion to refer, 
 
 with (/rcat cmiihasiH, in spc.iking of J May 24. 
 
 the BUliJoct to one of lii.s IViunda. - '
 
 1832.] MR BUXTON PERSISTS IN MOTION. 135 
 
 and acutely alive to the pain of refusing them, and, as they said, of 
 enbarrassing all their measures, and giving their enemies a handle at 
 this tottering moment. They said, besides, that the public w^ere so 
 occupied with reform, that it was only wasting the strength of the 
 cause ; nobody would listen, and the effect would be wholly lost, 
 whereas, if he would wait a little, they would all go with him; their 
 hearts were in fact with him, and all would be smooth, if he would 
 have a little reason and patience. On his return he related all this 
 to us, and proposed writing a letter to Lord Althorp, previous to the 
 final interview, which was to take place the next day. So a letter 
 was written, which I will copy : — 
 
 "'to lord althorp. 
 
 "'iVay 22, 1832. 
 
 " ' My Lord, — I am fearful lest I should have failed in conveying 
 to you, at least in their force, the impressions under which I am 
 acting. The fact is, from the study I have given to the subject, I 
 am so deeply sensible of the practical, as well as the inherent horrors 
 of the system, and of the persecution and cruelties which are daily 
 going on, that it is impossible for me to let this opportunity pass 
 over, without at least bearing my testimony against them. Allow 
 me, moreover, to remind you, that, however insignificant in myself, 
 1 am the representative, on this question, of no mean body in this 
 country, who would be, to an extent of which, I believe, you have no 
 idea, disappointed and chagrined at the suspension of the question. 
 But further, (and this is a consideration far more really influential 
 on my conduct,) I cannot but feel myself the representative of a 
 body who cannot speak for themselves, and for whom I must act 
 without other guide than my own conscience. There is nothing, 
 whatever may be the result of my motion, which I should look back 
 upon with so much regret, and I may add, shame, as the having, in 
 any measure or degree, slighted their interest for my own conven- 
 ience, or that of my friends in England, more particularly as those 
 friends are powerful and important, while those for whom I am act- 
 ing, however feebly, are helpless and oppressed. In short, I believe 
 it to be most for their advantage that I should brmg on my 
 motion, and therefore I am necessitated to say candidly, that I can- 
 not either postpone it or substitute for it anything short of aboli- 
 tion. To say, I do most reluctantly anything that can possibly 
 inconvenience the present Ministry, is needless and useless. 
 
 " ' I am, my dear Lord, with gi-eat esteem and respect, yours most 
 faithfully, ' T. F. Buxton.' 
 
 " It was early on the Wednesday morning that this letter was sent, 
 and in the afternoon he went again to Lord Althorp, who immedi- 
 ately gave him to understand that he saw it was of no use attempt- 
 ing to turn him, and that he gave him every credit for his motives. 
 Accordingly they resolved on their several courses, the motion, and 
 the amendment. Thursday morning, May 24th, came. My father 
 and I went out on horseback directly after breakfast, and a memor- 
 able ride we had. He began by saying that he had stood so far, but 
 that divide he could not. He said I could not conceive the pain of it, 
 
 L
 
 1 36 LORD ALTHORP'S AMENDMENT. [^t. 46. 
 
 that almost immberless ties and interests were concerned, that his 
 friends would be driven to vote against him, and thus their seats 
 would be endangered. But then his mind turned to the sufferings 
 of the missionaries and of the slaves, and he said after all he must 
 weigh the real amount of suffering, and not think only of that which 
 came under his sight ; and that if he were in the West Indies, he 
 should feel that the advocate in England ought to go straight on, 
 and despise those considerations. In short, by degrees, his 
 mind was made up. When we got near the House, every minute 
 we met somebody or other, who just hastily rode up to us. ' Come 
 on to-night?' 'Yes.' — 'Positively?' 'Positively;' and with a 
 blank countenance, the inquirer turned his horse's head, and rode 
 away. I do not know how many times this occurred. In St 
 James's Park we met Mr Spring Rice, whom he told, to my great 
 satisfaction, that he positively would divide. Next Sir Augustus 
 Dalrymple came up to us, and after the usual queries, said, ' Well, 
 I tell you frankly I mean to make an attack upon you to-night.' 
 ' On what point ? ' ' You said, some time ago, that the plantei-s 
 were opposed to religious instruction.' ' I did, and wiU maintain 
 it.' We came home, and dined at three. It is difficult to recall, 
 and perhaps impossible to convey to you the interest and excitement 
 of the moment. Catherine Hoare, R., and I, and the little boys, 
 went down with him. We were in the ventilator by four o'clock ; 
 our places were therefore good. For a long time we missed my 
 father, and found afterwards he had been sent for by Lord Althorp 
 for a further discussion, in which, however, he did not yield. 
 Many anti-slavery petitions were presented ; the great West Indian 
 petition by Lord Chandos. At length, about six, ' Mr Fowell Buxton ' 
 was called : he presented two petitions, one from the Archbishop of 
 Tuam and his clergy, and the other from the Delegates of the Dis- 
 senters in and near London. The order of the day was then called, 
 and he moved his resolution, which was for a committee ' to con- 
 sider and report upon the best means of abolishing the state of 
 slavery throughout the British dominions, with a due regard to the 
 safety of all parties concerned.' He spoke very well indeed, and 
 they listened to him far better than last year; in short, the subject 
 obviously carried much greater weight with it, and the effect of the 
 speech last year on population was manifest, as indeed it has been 
 ever since. He touched on that subject again, and alluded to his 
 statement, which he was hap])y to see in the hands of honourable 
 members (he had sent it round to each, a day or two before, signed 
 by himself; and there were many of them looking at it while he 
 wa.s spoaking). I was very much pleased to see it in their hands. 
 1 will not, liowevcr, attempt to go over the debate, or to relate the 
 speeches. Mr Macaulay's was strikingly eloquent. Lord Howick's 
 capital, and giving such a testimony to the speech of last year as de- 
 lighted me. He said, it had indeed startled him, and that he had 
 examined into all tlie facts, which he found undcnial)le; he evidently 
 Hj>oke imder the eH'cct of the impression it liad made upon him. 
 Lord Althorp proposed the amendment of adding 'conformably to 
 the resolutions of 18'2o.' Then came the trial. They (privately)
 
 1832.] THE DIVISION. 137 
 
 besought my father to give way, and not to press them to a divi- 
 sion. ' They hated,' they said, ' dividing against him, vphen their 
 hearts were all for him ; it was merely a nominal difference, why 
 should he split hairs ? he was sure to be beaten, where was the use 
 of bringing them all into difficulty, and making them vote against 
 him ? ' He told us that he thought he had a hundred applications 
 of this kind in the course of the evening ; in short, nearly every 
 fiiend he had in the House came to him, and by all considera- 
 tions of reason and friendship besought him to give way. Mr 
 Evans was almost the only person who took the other side. I 
 watched my father with indescribable anxiety seeing the members, 
 one after the other, come and sit down by him, and judging but too 
 well from their gestures, what their errand was. One of them 
 went to him four times, and at last sent up a note to him witii 
 these words, ' immovable as ever ? ' To my uncle Hoare, who was 
 under the gallery, they went repeatedly, but with no success, for he 
 would only send him a message to persevere. My uncle described 
 to me one gentleman, not a member, who was near him, under the 
 gallery, as having been in a high agitation all the evening, exclaim- 
 ing, ' Oh, he won't stand ! Oh, he '11 yield ! I 'd give a hundred 
 pounds, I'd give a thousand pounds, to have him di^'ide! Noble! 
 noble ! What a noble fellow he is ! ' according to the various 
 changes in the aspect of things. Among others, Mr Hume came 
 across to try his eloquence ; 'Now, don't be so obstinate; just put 
 in this one word, " interest ; " it makes no real difference, and then 
 all will be easy. You will only alienate the Government. Now,' 
 said he, 'I'll just tell Lord Althorp you have consented.' My 
 father replied, ' I don't think I exaggerate when I say, I would 
 rather your head were off, and mine too ; I am sure I had rather 
 yours were ! ' What a trial it was. He said afterwards, that he 
 coidd compare it to nothing but a continual tooth-drawing the 
 whole evening. At length he rose to reply, and very touchingly 
 alluded to the effort he had to make, but said, he was bomid in 
 conscience to do it, and that he tvould divide the House. Accord- 
 ingly the question was put. The Speaker said, ' I think the noes 
 have it.' Never shall I forget the tone in which his solitary voice 
 replied, ' No, sir.' ' The noes must go forth,' said the Speaker, and 
 all the House appeared to troop out. Those within were counted, 
 and amounted to ninety. This was a minority far beyond our ex- 
 pectations, and fi-om fifty upwards, my heai-t beat higher at every 
 number. I went round to the other side of the ventilator to see 
 them coming in. How my heart fell, as they reached 88, 89, 90, 91, 
 and the string still not at end; and it went on to 136. So Lord 
 Althorp's amendment was carried. At two o'clock in the morning 
 it was over, and for the first time my father came up to us in the 
 ventilator, I soon saw that it was almost too sore a subject to 
 touch upon; he was so wounded at having vexed all his friends. 
 
 Mr would not speak to him after it was over, so angry was he ; 
 
 and for days after when my father came home, he used to mention, 
 with real pain, somebody or other who would not return his bow. 
 On Friday, Dr Lushington came here and cheered him, saying.
 
 138 MR BUXTON'S SPEECH. [^t. 4G. 
 
 * Well, that minority was a great victory ; ' and this doos seem to be 
 the case ; but we hardly know how to forgive some of those who 
 ought to have swelled its numljers. My father, however, cannot 
 
 bear to hear them blamed. was wishing that some of those 
 
 ■who professed so much, and voted against him, might be turned 
 out. ' Oh ! ' he said, ' I would not hui-t a hair of their heads.' He 
 feels it a great cause for thankfulness and encouragement to have a 
 committee sitting to consider the best means of getting rid of 
 slavery. The formation of this committee was the next business, 
 and very difficult indeed it was. My father went many times to 
 Lord Althorp about it. Once Lord Althorp said, 'The fact is, 
 Buxton, the West Indians object, not only to your friends, but to 
 everbody who has any constituents : they won't have anybody out 
 of schedule A.' Lord Howick's name being mentioned. Lord Al- 
 thorp said, ' Why, he 's one of yourselves,' but added, ' we, the 
 Government, the middle party, must be represented in the com- 
 mittee.' My father said, ' Now, laying aside the caution of power, 
 and aU the pledges you have given, do you mean to say you don't 
 agree with me in your heart ? ' He did not deny it." 
 
 In this debate, as Mr Buxton afterwards said, "the 
 cause made a seven-league stride." One sentence of his 
 speech may be given : — 
 
 " How is the Government prepared to act in case of a general 
 insurrection of the negroes ? War is to be lamented anywhere, and 
 iiuder any circumstances : but a war against a people struggling for 
 their freedom and their right would be the falsest position in which 
 it is possible for England to be placed. And does the noble lord 
 think that the people out of doors will be content to see their re- 
 sources exhausted for the purpose of crushing the inalienable rights 
 of mankind ? 
 
 " I will refer the House to the sentiments of Mr Jefferson, the 
 President of the United States. Mr Jefferson was himself a slave- 
 owner, and full of the prejudices of slave-owners ; yet he left this 
 memorable testimony : ' I do, indeed, tremble for my country, when 
 1 remember that God is just, and that His justice may not sleep for 
 ever. A revolution is among possible events ; the Almighty has no 
 attribute which would side with us in such a struggle.' 
 
 " This is the point that weighs most heavily with me : ' The Al- 
 mighty has no attribute that will side with us in such a struggle.' 
 A war witli an overwhelming physical force, — a war with a climate 
 fatal to the European constitution, — a war, in which the heart of 
 the people of England would lean toward the enemy ; it is hazard- 
 ing all these terrible evils; but all are light and trivial, compai'ed 
 with the conviction I feel, that in such a warfare it is not possible 
 to ask, nor can wo expect, the countenance of Heaven. I assure 
 the Hou.so I have been discharging a most painful duty, and my 
 endeavour has been to perform it without oil'euce to any one." 
 
 Mr Buxton writes a few days afterwards to his daugh- 
 ter ; —
 
 1832.] PERSECUTION OF MISSIONARIES. 139 
 
 "London, May 31, 1832. 
 
 " One line, if it be only to say that we are well and happy. I 
 earnestly hope that you are the same. Pray enjoy yourself all you 
 can ; you are entitled to a holiday. 
 
 " I had a successful though laborious day yesterday. City Com- 
 mittees till ten o'clock ; Secondary Punishments, from one till four; 
 a ride ; Criminal Law from five till eleven ; the motion carried. 
 
 " To-morrow, the West-Indies Committee meets for the first time. 
 Love to aU your party, and above all to yourself, my daughter, 
 sister, friend, companion, counsellor." 
 
 Pursuant to the amended resolution, a committee was 
 named, of which Sir James Graham was chairman. Much 
 of the evidence brought before it related to the insurrection 
 of the negroes in Jamaica, which had been followed by 
 proceedings on the part of the colonists, equally deserving 
 the name of insurrection, had they not been perpetrated by 
 the militia, the magistrates, and the gentry of the island. 
 These persons had come to a resolution to maintain slavery, 
 by putting down the religious instruction of the negroes. 
 They accordingly destroyed seventeen chapels,* and in- 
 flicted upon the pastors and their flocks every species of 
 cruelty and insult. " I stake my character," said Mr 
 Buxton, " on the accuracy of the fact, that negroes have 
 been scourged to the very borders of the grave, uncharged 
 with any crime, save that of worshipping their God." 
 
 He adds, in reference to the unfortunate missionaries, — 
 " There have not been, in our day, such persecutions as these 
 brave and good men have been constrained to endure. Hereafter 
 we must make selections among our missionaries. Is there a man 
 whose timid or tender spirit is unequal to the storm of persecution ? 
 Send him to the savage — expose him to the cannibal — save his life 
 by directing his steps to the rude haunts of the barbarian. But if 
 there is a man of a stiffer, sterner nature, a man willing to encounter 
 obloquy, torture, and death, let him be reserved for the tender mer- 
 cies of our Christian brethren and fellow-countrymen, the planters 
 of Jamaica. "+ 
 
 The more obnoxious missionaries, particularly Messrs 
 Knibb and Burchell, were driven from the island, and ar- 
 rived in England at the very juncture when their evidence 
 before the committees was of the utmost value, and went 
 forth to the country under parliamentary sanction. They 
 then travelled through England and Scotland, holding 
 meetings in all the principal towns, and their eloquent ap- 
 
 * See report of the Committee, p. 270. 
 t Anti-Slavery Reporter, vol. v p. 149.
 
 UO EFFECT OF DEBATE ON GOVERNMENT, [^t. 46. 
 
 peals produced a great effect upon tlie public mind. No- 
 thing, in fact, contributed more powerfully to arouse the 
 " religious world " to a sense of their duty with regard to 
 the question of slavery. Mr Buxton frequently adverted to 
 the overruling hand of Providence, which had thus turned 
 the intolerance of the system to its own destruction. 
 
 The investigations of the committees of both Houses 
 were published together, and the general impression was 
 that they had established two points : First, that slavery was 
 an evil for which there was no remedy but extirpation; 
 secondly, that its extirpation would be safe. 
 
 The nation willingly acceded to these conclusions, and 
 impatiently desired to act upon them. How they affected 
 the minds of those in office we shall presently learn. 
 
 Such was the state of the slavery question when the ses- 
 sion closed ; and Mr Buxton returned with his family to 
 Northrepps. Durmg a short visit to London, in September, 
 he thus vn-ites to his daughter : — 
 
 " Spitalfields, September 27, 1832. 
 " I saw T. B. Macaulay yesterday : he told me one thing, which 
 has much occupied my mind ever since, and which furnished the 
 subject-matter of my meditations as I rode by the hght of the stars 
 to Upton last night. He said, ' You know how entirely everybody 
 disapproved of your course in your motion, and thought you very 
 wrong, very hard-hearted, and very headstrong; but two or three 
 days after the debate. Lord Althorp said to me, " That division of 
 Buxton s has settled the slavery question. If he can get ninety to vote 
 with him when he is wrong, and when most of those really interested 
 in the subject vote against him, he can command a majority tvhcu he 
 u right. The question is settled : the Government see it, and they 
 will take it up." ' So reported Macaulay; and he added, ' Sir James 
 (Jraham told me yesterday that the Government meet in a week ; 
 they will then divide themselves into committees on tlie three or four 
 leading questions, for the purpose of settling them. Slavery is one.' 
 Now it is not so much the fact that Govermnent are going to take 
 into their own hands the question for the purpose of settling it 
 which occui)ied my mind, as the consideration of the mode by which 
 we were led to that division, to which such imjiortant consequences 
 attach. It certainly was not the wisdom of my coadjutors ; for, with 
 the exception of my own family, Hoare, Evans, Johnston, and one 
 or two others, tlicy were all directly at variance with me. Brougham, 
 when ho heard of my obstinacy, said, ' Is the man mad? does he in- 
 tend to act without means? He must give way.' It really was not 
 the windom of my counsellors, and as certainly it was not either my 
 own wisdom or rtssohition. I felt, it is true, clear that 1 was right; 
 but I did not find it easy to explain the reason why I was so clear.
 
 1832.] ATTACK ON MR BUXTOK Ul 
 
 " Then as to the resolution, I found it very difficult to stand firm. 
 I felt far more distressed than I ought to have done, at acting in 
 hostility to my friends. I was unusually weak on that point. What, 
 then, led to the division? If ever there was a subject which occu- 
 pied our prayers, it was this. Do you remember how we desired 
 that God would give me His Spirit in that emergency, that He would 
 lise up as the champion of the oj^pressed ? How we quoted the 
 promise, ' He that lacketh wisdom, let him ask it of the Lord, and 
 it shall be given him ? ' And how I kept open that passage in the 
 Old Testament, in which it is said, (2 Chron. chap. xx. 12,) ' We 
 have no might against this great comjjany that cometh against us : 
 neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon thee ; ' the Spirit 
 of the Lord replying, ' Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this 
 great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's.' If you want 
 to see the passage, open my Bible ; it will turn of itself to the place. 
 I sincerely believe that prayer was the cause of that division ; and I 
 am confirmed in this, by knowing that we by no means calculated 
 on the effect which that division seems likely to produce. The 
 course we took appeared to be right, and we followed it blindly." 
 
 It was not only from liis antagonists that Mr Buxton 
 encountered opposition ; the storm at times was almost as 
 fierce from those who were as ardent as himself in the 
 cause of emancipation. On the eve of the election of 1832, 
 he suggested, in a letter to Sir George Chetwynd, that the 
 pledge to be asked from candidates at elections should be, 
 that they would aim at " the extinction of slavery, at the 
 earliest period compatible with the safety of all classes." 
 This last condition was unacceptable to one section of the 
 anti-slavery party, whose zeal could no longer brook any 
 degree of moderation. The following burst of " indignant 
 astonishment " was from the pen of one of these impetuous 
 advocates : — 
 
 " I have long condemned the advocates of emancipation, because 
 they have not sought the deliverance of the slave till it suited the 
 
 convenience of his oppressor to let him go free To be candid, 
 
 sir, I would rather see you throw up your brief, and take a retain- 
 ing fee from the planters, than that you should, in a reformed Par- 
 liament, bring forward a motion in accordance with the sentiments 
 expressed in your letter to Sir G. Chetwynd. And if you appear as 
 the advocate of such a profane measure, we will look to some more 
 enlightened advocate to forward that cause which must be carried." 
 
 Mr Buxton's reply was as follows : — 
 
 "NoRTHREPPS, October 15, 1832. 
 
 " Dear Sir, — I am so thoroughly inured to expressions of the 
 strongest condemnation from all sides, as to my course with regard 
 to slavery, that I should scarcely be prevailed on to notice those I 
 have received from you, were it not that I like the spirit which die-
 
 142 NOTICE OF MOTION. [JEt. 46. 
 
 tates them, and should be glad if it were more general. Without 
 therefore noticing the violence of your expressions, or questioning 
 their propriety towards one who, however imworthy and unsuccess- 
 ful, has certainly been for many years almost wholly devoted to this 
 cause, let me attempt to justify the letter to which you refer. I 
 said to Sir George Chetwynd, as I have said on every other occasion, 
 and as the words of my motion expressed, that my aim was ' eman- 
 cipation, at the earliest period compatible with the personal safety 
 of aU classes.' Where did you find a word of ' convenience ? ' How 
 little do you know the heavy battles I have had to fight on this very 
 point. If the emancipation of the slaves were in my power, I could 
 not dare to accomplish it without previous police regulations, which 
 is all the delay I mean. These ought to be undertaken instantly ; 
 for I know our power of emancipating in one way or another is fast 
 drawing to a close : I mean that the negroes will take the work into 
 their own hands. But whoever else is willing to undertake the 
 weight of so enormous a responsibility, / am not, without consider- 
 ing the personal safety of all classes. If you, my dear sir, can send 
 some ' more enlightened advocate,' you may believe me, that we are 
 far too much oppressed and borne down with the weight of our task 
 in Parliament, not to hail his assistance, however given. But, in the 
 meantime, I must take the liberty of saying that I did not under- 
 take this serious work at man's bidding ; nor shall I, I trust, lay it 
 down at the bidding either of enemies or friends. 
 
 " With every good wish, and begging you to continue your exer- 
 tions, and to blame me as much as you please, if it will stir up one 
 of our friends, I am, dear Sir, yours, very truly, 
 
 " T. FowELL Buxton." 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 1833. 
 
 Mr Buxton went down to the House of Lords, on the 
 5th of February 1833, in full expectation of hearing from 
 the King's speech that one of the great measures of the 
 session was to be the emancipation of the slaves. Great 
 was his disappointment when the speech closed without 
 any allusion whatever to the subject. He hastened back 
 to the House of Commons, and immediately on the Speaker's 
 return gave notice of a motion, on the 19th of March, for 
 the abolition of slavery. A few minutes afterwards, one of 
 his friends hurried up to him, and said, " I have just been 
 with lirougham and (Jodcricli, and they conjure you to do 
 nothing lia.stily ; you will wreck the cause if you do." 
 " What ! not give notice of a motion ] " said he. " Oh, no ! 
 by no means," was the reply; " you will knock the whole
 
 1833.] ANXIETY AS TO THE RESULT, 143 
 
 thing over." ^' But it's done 1''^ said Mr Buxton. This 
 prompt proceeding had an immediate effect on the ministers. 
 He writes two days later to Mr Joseph John Gurney : — 
 
 "London, February 1, 1833. 
 " You may suppose that I was affronted and vexed at the silence 
 of the King's speech. I instantly gave notice of a motion, and last 
 night, as you will see by the papers, I asked the Government what 
 their intentions were. They replied, that they would undertake the 
 question, and introduce ' a safe and satisfactory measure.' I feel ex- 
 cessively relieved and deUghted, and not a little thankful for this 
 great mercy." 
 
 A government must have been short-sighted indeed, which 
 could have hoped to keep clear of this great question. 
 Public feeling had been of late gathering with prodigious 
 rapidity, and a crisis was evidently near. The outcry 
 against slavery seemed to be rising at once from every cor- 
 ner of the land. Men of all ranks, of all denominations, 
 were joining in the attack : and the House itself, where but 
 a few years before scarcely half-a-dozen hearty advocates for 
 emancipation could have been numbered, was now filled 
 with zealous friends of the cause. 
 
 But, while Mr Buxton was quite wUling to give up the 
 conduct of the case to the ministers, he did not cease to 
 watch their proceedings with the utmost vigilance. Hopes 
 and fears alternated as to the nature and extent of the 
 measures that were to be expected from them, and as the 
 time advanced, he became more and more uneasy. 
 
 He had consented to abstain from making his motion on 
 the 19tli of March, on the condition that the ministers 
 would themselves bring in " a safe and satisfactory mea- 
 sure ; " but some weeks had now elapsed, and stUl not one 
 word had been said publicly as to their intention of fulfil- 
 ling their pledge. They had named no day for a motion ; 
 they had ofiicially announced no plan ; and rumours got 
 abroad that there were divisions in the camp, that the Go- 
 vernment collectively had by no means decided on adopting 
 the vigorous steps which some of its members proposed. 
 
 From ten years' experience, Mr Buxton had but too well 
 learnt the immense weight of the West Indian party in the 
 councils of the nation. He knew also that the Government 
 had the questions of finance, India, and the Church to 
 grapple with during this session, and were probably not so
 
 144 NEGOTIATIONS WITH GOVERNMENT. r^T. 47. 
 
 impressed as himself witli the extreme danger of dela}dng 
 the emancipation of the slaves. He coidd not, therefore, 
 but feel it a cause for alarm that, notwithstanding Lord 
 Althorp's promise of a safe and satisfactory measure, so long 
 a period should have elapsed without the appearance of any 
 measure at all. " He is much depressed, because the mini- 
 sters do not name a day ; he does not know whether or not 
 to execute his threat of bringing his motion forward next 
 Tuesday ; for this he is almost unprepared : and besides, 
 they promise so well that it seems doubtful whether it wovdd 
 be right or politic to go to war with them. He sleeps 
 badly and is very anxious."* 
 
 Since the ministers were thus overwhelmed with busi- 
 ness, and fettered by their relations with the West Indian 
 proprietors, it may naturally be asked, why did he leave 
 the question in their hands 1 Backed by such a band of 
 followers, why did he not wield all his powers, and drive 
 forward the measure with his own handl It was because 
 he believed that while emancipation in the end was certain, 
 it was only as a cabinet measure that it could be carried 
 through during this session ; and delay, fraught as it might 
 be with servile revolt, was the one thing that he most 
 dreaded. He contented himself, therefore, with spurring 
 on the Government, resolving not to take the lead unless 
 compelled to do so. Nothing drew such notice from his 
 friends as the indifference he evinced as to any personal 
 credit to himself " It is surprising," writes one of them, 
 " how he puts himself entirely out of the question. It does 
 not seem to excite one feeling in his mind, whether, after 
 all his toils, he is to appear in the matter or not. He seems 
 to care for nothing, but the advancement of the c?.:ise." 
 
 His whole heart and soul, in fact, were given up to the work, 
 and the depth and intensity of his feelings were visible in all 
 his deportment ; he looked pale and careworn, and his tall 
 figure began to shew signs of stooping. He spoke little, and 
 was continually engrossed in tliought. His demeanour could 
 not be more exactly [)ortraycd, than by Spenser's lines : — 
 
 " But Httlo joyo had lio to talko of ought, 
 f )r ouKht to hearo that inoto delightful be ; 
 HiH mind was Bolo iiossessod of oiio thought 
 That gavo none othor place." 
 
 • Letter ti^ Northroiips Cottage, March 16.
 
 1833.] AGITATION RESOLVED OK 145 
 
 Incessant efforts had now to be made by Mr Buxton, be- 
 fore tlie Government would really address themselves to the 
 question. They were resolved, if possible, to defer it si7ie 
 die. In fact. Lord Al thorp told him " they really were ob- 
 liged to do so, they were in such a strait." But Mr Bux- 
 ton was resolute, and pushed them so hard, that at last they 
 fdrly pledged themselves to bring the matter forward. 
 
 When the day for the motion had been announced by 
 Government, Mr Buxton sank for a while into a feeling of 
 profound repose. He was able to sleep at night, and began 
 to resume his cheerfulness of manner. He thought that as 
 the Government had been prevented from delaying the 
 question, the grand point was gained ; and that it only re- 
 mained for him and his friends to await the unfolding of 
 their measure. " I have no more to do with slavery now 
 than any other gentleman," was an expression frequently on 
 his lips, during that inten^al of rest. But he soon found 
 that he had been too sanguine ; at the end of a few days 
 fresh causes of anxiety began to arise. To his dismay, he 
 heard a rumour that Lord Howick, on the soundness of 
 whose principles he thoroughly relied, was about to resign 
 his place, on the ground that the Cabinet refused to concur 
 in his scheme of immediate emancipation. Afterwards he 
 learned that the Government were inclined to make the 
 negroes buy out their own freedom. The details of the 
 measure Mr Buxton could not learn, but the process was 
 sure to be dilatory, and was on the face of it unjust. Full 
 of chagrin and disappointment, he hurried to Dr Lushing- 
 ton. They agreed to call a special committee of the Anti- 
 slavery Society on the following day, and he then went 
 home, " looking as if some heavy misfortune had befallen 
 him." The next day, the heads of the party met to deli- 
 berate on this new turn of affairs. Their opinion as to the 
 course they should pursue was unanimous. The higher 
 powers were clearly about to fail them ; the nation was 
 firmly on their side : why not, then, place the matter in the 
 nation's hands? 
 
 Having resolved to arouse the people, they spared no 
 pains to do so with effect ; and, in this endeavour, a most 
 opportune aid was afforded them. Just at the time when 
 they were anxious to call forth a burst of public feeling,
 
 146 WHITELY'S PAMPHLET. [^t. 47. 
 
 Mr Buxton being one morning at breakfast, surrounded as 
 usual by papers, and deep in discussion Avith Mr George 
 Stephen, a young man named Whitely was brought in and 
 introduced to him by ilr Pringle, as a book-keeper who 
 had just returned from the West Indies. He told what he 
 had seen, a tale of cruelty and suffering such as Mr Buxton 
 had heard a hundred times before. The young man took 
 his leave ; but scarcely was he gone, when the thought 
 struck Mr Buxton, that such a picture fresh from the spot 
 was the very thing they needed. He ran into the street 
 without his hat, caught Whitely as he turned the corner 
 into Portland Place, and having brought him back, told him 
 that he absolutely must put down this story in writing, and 
 must also produce certificates as to his own character. 
 These certificates proved to be highly satisfactory, and in a 
 few days the pamphlet was in print.* 
 
 The effect was prodigious. The narrative, written in a 
 homely but graphic style, realised to the mhid of every one 
 the real import of what he had previously heard, as to the 
 dwindling of the population and the terrors of the lash. 
 Truth, too, was stamped on every word. It contained in- 
 deed nothing new, but in reading Whitely's simple narrative 
 of the common incidents of a sugar plantation, the whole 
 scene appeared to stand before the eye. The driver looking 
 on with lazy indifference — the piercing cries and supplica- 
 tions of the miserable negro woman brought out and tied 
 down upon the ground to receive her punishment — the 
 crack of the fearful cart-whip, and the shriek of agony as it 
 cut deep into the flesh — appalling as the description was, 
 yet no man could deny its truth. In four colonics, and 
 these the best ordered, the planters had themselves sworn 
 to the infliction of sixty-eight thousand punishments in two 
 years. And let any man say how they could be inflicted, 
 without these circumstances of horrible suffering and degra- 
 dation. 
 
 The pamphlet spread abroad with wonderful rapidity. 
 "Whitely," says a letter to Northrepps, "nothing but 
 Whitely, is the order of the day ; the sensation it creates is 
 immense ; tlio printers can scarcely supply the demand. 
 
 • "Tlirco MimtliH in J.-iiimica;" by ITcnry Wliitcly The certificates are 
 given at the end of tlie iiiuiii)lilot.
 
 1833.] COMPENSATION". 147 
 
 !Mr Pringle says ten thousand have been ordered to-day." 
 In short, within a fortnight's time, nearly two hundred 
 thousand copies were scattered abroad. 
 
 Eager as the leaders were to urge the Government for- 
 ward, by turning upon them a strong pressure of popular 
 opinion, they were at the same time most anxious to pre- 
 serve their alliance, and keep them in the front of the 
 movement, by every allowable concession. And the first 
 concession which the Government required, was the concur- 
 rence of the Abolitionists in granting compensation to the 
 planters. 
 
 On this question the opinions held by the anti-sla very- 
 leaders were not those of the mam body of their followers. 
 The former maintained that neither law nor custom could 
 give one man a real claim to the possession of another ; and, 
 therefore, they could not admit that the planters had any 
 moral right to compensation. On the other hand, they 
 were both willing and desirous to give compensation, first, 
 because they thought that a bonus to the planters was the 
 best if not the only way of obtaining emancipation with 
 safety to all parties ; secondly, because they heartily desired 
 that, while the negroes were set at liberty, the planters 
 should not be exposed to a ruinous loss. But the greater 
 number of their followers did not comprehend the real 
 position of affairs. They were not aware of the relative 
 strength of the three parties in Parhament, nor did they 
 perceive that, unless a junction were efiected with the 
 Government, success could not be insured against the West 
 Indians. 
 
 Carried away by their anxiety to do justice to the negi'o, 
 they deemed all compromise, and all concession to his owner, 
 a dereliction of principle ; nor could they endure the idea 
 of striking a bargain with the oppressor. It is likely, also, 
 that, in the minds of many, a feeling of personal hostility 
 towards the planters had grown up during the long con- 
 tinuance of the contest. Mr Buxton, therefore, and his 
 more temperate coadjutors, had now to undertake that task 
 which has so frequently dethroned the leaders of a popular 
 movement — that of teaching their followers to rein in their 
 zeal. 
 
 It was determined that the idea of acquiescing in some
 
 14:8 THE NATION AROUSED. [^Et. 47 
 
 system of compensation should be broacheJ to the Anti- 
 slavery Society at its approaching annual meeting. This 
 meeting was held on the 2d of April ; Lord Suffield was in 
 the chair, whUe Mr Buxton undertook the delicate task of 
 introducing the proposal. 
 
 His friends listened with extreme anxiety as he commenced 
 his speech ; for a time he seemed to hover about the sub- 
 ject, as if shrmking from his task ; but at length he grappled 
 boldly with it, and his appeal was met with apparently 
 imanimous applause. He was ably followed by Dr Lush- 
 ington, Mr Joseph J. Gurney, and others ; and their exer- 
 tions appeared to be crowned with unexpected success. 
 
 But nothing can be more transient than such triumphs 
 of oratory, which can only withdraw a party for an instant 
 from its natural career. Smooth as the beginning seemed, 
 at this point commenced divisions in the ranks of the Aboli- 
 tionists, and the seeds of discord were sown, which bore 
 frait in due season, though happily too late to be of injury 
 to the cause. 
 
 Nor was solicitude confined to Mr Buxton and his friends. 
 The Government had their full share of anxiety. Indeed 
 Mr Stanley's position, in the midst of so many conflicting 
 interests, was one of great difficulty, and he found it neces- 
 saiy to postpone his motion till the 14th of May. 
 
 Now, therefore, when fuU success might be gained by a 
 vigorous effort, or lost if that effort were not made, now was 
 the time to bring every force to bear, and to sweep away all 
 obstacles by an irresistible impetus of pubhc feeling. This 
 was the moment to make the Government feel to what a 
 pitch the hatred of slavery had risen. Nor was it difficult. 
 The meeting in Exeter Hall and the publication of Whitcly's 
 pamplilet had led the way. These first steps were followed 
 up by the most vigorous proceedings, under the direction 
 chiefly of Mr George Stephen and Mr Pringle, whose services 
 were of essential value at this critical juncture. Lectures 
 were delivered hi all the counties of the kingdom. Crowded 
 meetings were everywhere held, and the friends of the cause 
 bestirred themselves from one end of the country to the 
 other. Tlie ncwsiiapers and periodicals caught the enthu- 
 siasm. 'J'he cause of mercy seemed the cause of religion, 
 and many of the clergy and dissenting ministers did not
 
 1833.] DELEGATES SUMMONED. 149 
 
 hesitate to urge upon their flocks the sinfulness of slavery, 
 and the righteousness of joining heart and hand for its over- 
 throw. The flame soon spread far and wide ; from every 
 corner of the land petitions poured in, breathing the earnest 
 desires of the people ; from Devonshire came five hundred, 
 from West Essex three hundred ; the number of signatures 
 attached to the petitions presented this session were calcu- 
 lated to amount to nearly a million and a half; and just at 
 this moment, when the ferment was highest, a step was 
 taken which gave double effect to all the previous proceed- 
 ings. A circular was addressed by the committee to the 
 friends of the cause in every considerable town, requesting 
 them to appoint delegates, who were to meet in London on 
 the 18th of the month, to represent in person the wishes of 
 the nation. 
 
 Mr Buxton had been, with Mr James Stephen, spending 
 a few of these eventful days in a delightful, and as it proved, 
 a farewell visit to Mr Wilberforce, at his son's house at 
 East Farleigh ; but when the day for the assembling of the 
 delegates drew near, he returned to town, and again plunged 
 into the whirlpool of affairs. During the heat of the con- 
 flict, the rush of business at his house was incessant. As 
 he usually returned late from the House, and slept very 
 badly, he was rarely down in the morning till ten or eleven 
 o'clock, and long before he had finished dressing the appli- 
 cants for admission began to pour in. To him, as the anti- 
 slavery leader, every one who had any connexion with the 
 ixtmost border of the subject felt at liberty to apply. Be- 
 sides his London coadjutors in the cause, he was often 
 visited by those who had been active in promoting it in the 
 country, and who wished for his advice or encouragement. 
 Then there were people from the West Indies, teeming with 
 complaints, arguments, and information — some come in the 
 hope of convincing him by their individual experience, that 
 he was all in the wrong ; some to confirm his impression 
 that he was all in the right ; angry planters come to expostu- 
 late ; missionaries, teachers, and negroes come to lay their 
 cases before him, or to supply him with intelligence. His 
 house, which had before been a kind of depot of anti-slavery 
 petitions, was now half filled with them ; in every corner 
 they lay in heaps, with letters and papers from all parts
 
 150 MEETING OF THE DELEGATES. [^t. 47. 
 
 of England. Anxious consultations were going on among 
 the leaders of the party in London. The call for delegates 
 had been answered to an unexpected extent ; and the ques- 
 tion now arose how most prudently and effectively to wield 
 the force about to join them. Nor was the moment unat- 
 tended with anxiety. It was very doubtful whether so 
 many earnest advocates could be brought to act in concert ; 
 each had his own conscientious scruples, and what can be 
 more wayward than the conscience of a scrupulous English- 
 man ? " People's principles are the greatest nuisances in 
 life," playfully exclaimed Mr Buxton, when he returned 
 from the first meeting of 330 delegates in Exeter Hall. It 
 was an occasion which called forth all his tact and powers 
 of argument; but the delegates, strong and independent as 
 their views were, placed a generous confidence in their 
 leaders, and a sufiicient degree of unanimity was at length 
 obtained. 
 
 It was necessary to frame an address to the Premier 
 which should embody their sentiments. This difficult task 
 fell to the lot of Mr J. J. Guniey, and the paper which he 
 l^repared received a cordial assent. On the ensuing day 
 they met again in Exeter Hall, and proceeded in a body to 
 Downing Street. Drawn as they had been from almost 
 every place of note in the United Kingdom, they included 
 in their ranks men of every calling and denomination ; 
 among them were to be seen, we are told, " merchants, 
 squires, bankers, magistrates, clergymen, and dissenting 
 ministers." Lord Althoq) and Mr Stanley received them ; 
 and after Mr Samuel Gurney had read the address and 
 commented on it, Mr Buxton stepped forward and pointed 
 out the extent of the movement which had sent the dele- 
 gates thither. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that this manifestation had a great 
 effect on the Government ; it was the first occasion on which- 
 public feeling so emj)hatically expressed itself, and it was 
 felt to be called forth by no ordinary earnestness of purpose. 
 Mr Stanley afterwards acknowledged its importance, but, 
 at the time, he gave no further pledge than that he would 
 not again postpone his motion.
 
 1833.] WOMEN'S PETITION. 151 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The Government plan was now expected with the utmost 
 anxiety. In the interval Mr Buxton, who stood much in 
 need of rest and quiet, retreated with his daughters to a 
 fishing cottage at Dagenham Breach, near the Thames, 
 belonging to Mr Fry. This could be reached only by water, 
 and afforded the most perfect seclusion. " We trust," 
 writes one of the party, " not to see the face of a visitor, 
 nor the direction of a letter, till Monday the 13th." Dr 
 Lushington remained in town, to watch the progress of 
 affairs. Many contradictory reports were afloat, and Mr 
 Buxton's brief holiday was spent in deep meditation on the 
 course he should pursue. His eldest daughter thus writes 
 from Dagenham : — 
 
 "SaturdciT/, May 11, 1833. 
 " Here we are in our singular retirement, living out of doors on 
 the rich bank, which is overflowing with grass and flowers, and 
 watching the hundreds of fine ships, which from here seem to float 
 among the fields ; but when we climb the bank, there lies the river 
 stretched out — its lovely reaches glittering in the sun. We have 
 tasted some real enjoyment in the exuberance of spring in this jjlace, 
 but far more in seeing my dear father wandering about without his 
 hat for hours together. He has, I fear, been reflecting too deeply 
 during these walks. A set of harassing letters came from London 
 yesterday, which immediately gave him a sharp headache." 
 
 At last the 14th of May arrived. Mr Buxton afterwards 
 told his daughter, that just as they were going off to the 
 House on that memorable evening — perhaps the most me- 
 morable of his life — he had reached his study door, when 
 he went back to have one look at his Bible. He opened it 
 on the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, and read those two 
 verses, " If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy 
 the afflicted soul ; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and 
 thy darkness be as noon-day : and the Lord shall guide 
 thee continually," &c. " The remembrance of them pre- 
 served me," he said, " from being in the least anxious the 
 whole evening ; I felt so sure the promise would be fulfilled 
 to me, ' The Lord shall guide thee continually.' " 
 
 The proceedings of the evening commenced with the 
 presentation of a huge petition from the females of Great 
 Britain. The scene is thus described in the Mirror of Par- 
 liament : — 
 
 M
 
 152 MR STANLEY'S SPEECH. [^t. 47. 
 
 " Mr Fowell Buxton, on presenting the petition from the females 
 of Great Britain, said, ' Ten days ago, this petition was not pre- 
 pared; it was not even in contemplation; but within that short 
 period, without any solicitation whatever, it has received from all 
 parts of the country through which it has been circulated, no less 
 than 187,000 signatures. I wish to consult you, sir, as to the man- 
 ner in which I am to get it to the table, for it is so heavy that I 
 really am unable to carry it.' 
 
 " The Speaker. — ' If the hon. gentleman cannot bring up the 
 petition himself, he must procure the assistance of some other mem- 
 bers of the House.' 
 
 " Three hon. members then went out with Mr Buxton, and by 
 the united exertions of the four, the petition was brought in and 
 placed upon the table " (as we are told elsewhere), " amidst the 
 laughter and cheers of the House." 
 
 Mr Stanley then opened the debate. He had been Colo- 
 nial Secretary little more than a month, yet he shewed that, 
 vast as the subject was, he had, in that short time, com- 
 pletely mastered its details, had become conversant with all 
 its dangers and difficulties, and was prepared to settle it for 
 ever. He began by noticmg the depth and extent of pub- 
 lic feeling upon the question of slavery, and that this feeling 
 had its source in religious principle. 
 
 " There is," he said, " throughout the country, from one end of it 
 to the other, a determination, a determination the more absolute 
 and irresistible, because it is founded in that deep religious feeling, 
 on that solemn conviction of principle, which admits of no paUiative 
 or compromise, and which has declared itself in a voice to which no 
 minister can be deaf, and which no man who watches the signs of 
 the times can misunderstand." 
 
 He then entered into the history of the case, pointing 
 out how confidently Parliament had looked for the co-ope- 
 ration of the colonial legislatures, and that in these expecta- 
 tions " the country had been grievously disappointed." 
 
 " The voice," he said, " of friendly warning — the voice of 
 authority, has been found to be in vain. Not a single step 
 lias been taken by any one of the colonial legislatures with 
 a view to the extinction of negro slavery." 
 
 After asserting the right of the mother country to legis- 
 late for the colonics, he proceeded to shew that the dis- 
 tresses of the colonists were not owing " to the unceasing 
 efforts of tlie abolitionists," and the discussion of the sla- 
 very question in Parliament ; and he read documents to 
 prove that those distresses existed to the same extent, not
 
 1S33.] PROVISIONS OF THE BILL. 153 
 
 only before slavery was discussed, but even in the days of 
 the slave trade. 
 
 He then entered forcibly into the arguments founded on 
 the rapid decrease of population, and the immense amount 
 of punishments with the whip, proving the pregnant and 
 dreadful fact, that as the popiilation diminished the number 
 of stripes increased. 
 
 Up to this point Mr Buxton and Dr Lushington had 
 been listening to the speech with satisfaction and delight. 
 The very principles, the very facts, the very arguments 
 which tlaey had for years been endeavouring to impress 
 upon the House, they had now heard enforced from the 
 Treasury bench, with the splendid eloquence of Mr Stan- 
 ley. 
 
 But when Mr Stanley turned from the general princi- 
 ples on which he proposed to act, to his scheme for their 
 application, the feelings of the advocates of the negro 
 underwent a painful change. His plan contained the 
 following main propositions, — some good, some, as they 
 conceived, fraught with evil : — 
 
 That slavery be abolished throughout the British do- 
 minions. 
 
 But that the present slaves should be apprenticed for a 
 certain period of time to their former owners ; that is, 
 should be bound to labour for their former masters during 
 three-fourths of the day, the masters in return supplying 
 them with food and clothing. 
 
 Part of the slave's value would be secured in this way to 
 his former owner. The remainder was to be paid by 
 England in the shape of a loan of £15,000,000 sterling 
 (afterwards changed to a gift of twenty millions.) 
 
 AU children under six years old were to be at once set 
 completely free. Stipendiary magistrates were to be ap- 
 pointed to carry out these measures, and provision was to 
 be made for the religious and moral training of the negro 
 population. 
 
 The negro was to be liable to corporal punishment, if he 
 refused to give his due portion of labour. 
 
 When Mr Stanley had announced the resolutions of which 
 these were the leading features, their further discussion was 
 adjourned to the 30th of 'May.
 
 154 APPRENTICESHIP. [^t. 47. 
 
 Upon the wliole, Mr Buxton was satisfied with the result 
 of the evening, for although some of the proposed arrange- 
 ments were utterly distasteful to him, he looked forward to 
 great modifications of the obnoxious clauses during the 
 progress of the bill through Parliament. According to his 
 invariable practice, he laid the matter before God in fre- 
 quent and earnest prayer. 
 
 The following was the substance of his supplications at 
 family prayers, on the second morning after the announce- 
 ment of the Government measure : — 
 
 " We beseech Thee, Lord, to be Thyself the champion of the 
 captives ; their champion, yet not the avenger of their sufferings. 
 We pray Thee so to assist this great work, that it may be the means 
 of spreading temporal peace, ease, and industry among the negroes, 
 and of leading them spiritually to the knowledge of God, that by 
 it millions may be brought into Thy happy fold. And for those who 
 have laboured in this good and great work, may their reward be in 
 the outpouring of Thy Spirit ; may they live in Thy light, and may 
 their darkness be removed for ever ; may the Lord guide them con- 
 tinually ; may their soul be like a watered garden, and may they be 
 satisfied in drought. Bless the country that shall make this amaz- 
 ing sacrifice. 
 
 " And now I desire to return thanks imto Thee, Lord, for the 
 great mercies Thou hast shewn us; that thou hast turned the 
 hearts of those who have influence and power, and made them to be 
 labourers in the cause of the oppressed. We thank Thee, that Thou 
 at length hast shewn Thine own power and come forth." 
 
 The discussion of the resolutions occupied the House till 
 the 12th of June. At this point the grand object of the 
 anti-slavery leaders was to see the Government and Parlia- 
 ment fully committed to the measure. " For," said Mr 
 Buxton, " were an amendment on this plan to be moved 
 and carried, and we were in consequence to lose this mea- 
 sure altogether, an insurrection would inevitably take place, 
 and I confess I cannot with firmness contemplate so horrible 
 a termination of slavery." Therefore, while protesting 
 against the apprenticeship, they abstained from dividing 
 the House upon it till the principle of the bill had been 
 admitted. They also acquiesced in the grant of compensa- 
 tion to the planters. On the clause relating to the moral 
 and religious instruction of the negroes — 
 
 " I shall move," said Mr Buxton, "as an amendment, the words 
 which have been used by tlio right hoii. Secretary in his speech, 
 uaaiely, that the system of instruction shall bo conducted, not on
 
 1833.] POLICY OF THE LEADERS. 155 
 
 exclusive, not on intolerant, but on 'liberal and compreliensive 
 jjrinciples.' I am the more anxious on this point, as I know on the 
 one hand, the extreme animosity of the colonists to all religious 
 teachers of their slaves, except those of the Church of England, 
 while on the other, I know the vast benefits which the dissenting 
 missionaries have imparted, and are likely to impart to the negro 
 population. I think a system of perfect and unbounded toleration 
 ought to prevail in the West Indies, as in England." 
 
 But the main features of the plan were, " apprenticeship 
 for the negro," and " compensation to the planters ; " and 
 these were so extremely obnoxious to the more vehement 
 abolitionists, that Mr Buxton was most severely blamed for 
 having acquiesced in the principle of a measure of which 
 these formed an essential part. He should, they said, 
 have at once gone to war with the Government. But his 
 own deliberate opinion was, that if this measure were re- 
 fused, no other would be obtained ; and, therefore, he was 
 most anxious to modify rather than to reject it. Dr Lush- 
 ington took the same view, and by degrees they had the 
 satisfaction of finding that all their original coadjutors 
 acquiesced in its prudence. 
 
 But the anti-slavery movement was outstripping its 
 leaders. In so large and zealous a body as that which now 
 followed them, there could not but be many so earnestly 
 bent on the success of their cause, as to be unable to heed 
 the obstacles which still blocked the way, and who, 
 
 "Forgetting 
 That policy, expecting not clear gain, 
 Deals ever in alternatives," * 
 
 looked with extreme jealousy on the slightest concessions 
 made by their chiefs. And thus the party quickly fell into 
 two sections, one of which was ready to make any reason- 
 able sacrifice in order to attain success, while the other 
 firmly opposed all compromise, looking on it as a breach 
 of principle. This latter section, dissatisfied with the 
 moderate counsels of the original committee, had already 
 established another of its own, under the name of the 
 " Agency Committee," which severely condemned Mr Bux- 
 ton for being willing to acknowledge the claims of the 
 West Indian party. 
 
 In the midst of these attacks it was most cheering to JMr 
 
 * "Philip Van Ai'tevelde."
 
 156 MR STANLEY'S BILL BROUGHT IN. [^t. 47. 
 
 Buxton to receive assurances of sympathy and approbation 
 from those veterans of the cause, whose opinions he most 
 highly vakied. 
 
 Mr WUberforce thus expresses himself to Mr W. Smith : — 
 
 "Bath, June 25, 1833. 
 " I have but one moment to-day at my command, but I cannot 
 bear to remain silent when your letter touches a string which 
 vibrates in my inmost soul. I feel more indignant than I can well 
 express, at the unworthy treatment dear honest Buxton has ex- 
 perienced. Even had he been mistaken in his judgment, yet, know- 
 ing the purity of his motives, and the zeal, and the anxiety, and the 
 labour which he has been experiencing, any liberal man would have 
 taken him to his bosom, and endeavoured to cheer and to comfort 
 him. I entirely concur with you as to our true policy." 
 
 One of the letters to Northrepps Cottage, says : — 
 
 " The career of victory has been mixed with many personal 
 humiliations and mortifications; and now the anti-slavery people 
 are so violently tm-ned against my father for not voting against the 
 twenty milHons, that they can hardly find words to express their 
 displeasure. I must say, that his spirit through all is wonderful. 
 He is as uninfluenced by the attacks of friends as of foes, and goes 
 straight on to his mark with a degree of firmness, which, considering 
 it is unaided by that very supporting quality, natural obstinacy, 
 Beems almost incomprehensible. 
 
 " Every day he receives violent letters of censure, from one party 
 for voting for the money, from another for saying the planters have 
 no right to it ; but he is under such a deep and powerful impulse 
 for the good of his cause, that nothing else touches him. He seems 
 to be devoted to it in a way that renders him insensible to minor 
 influences, and reminds one of the description of Howard, in Foster's 
 essay on Decision of Character. Self is strangely forgotten by 
 Lini; not subdued or resisted, but genuinely forgotten." 
 
 When Mr Stanley's bill was brought in, Mr Buxton was 
 disappointed to find that it retained the obnoxious points 
 in full force. He writes : — 
 
 "London, Juhj 6, 1833. 
 
 " I do not think our slavery matters are going on very well. The 
 Government are going to bring in their bill to-night. It retains the 
 apprenticeship for twelve years, which makes me very indignant, 
 mil would make me very unhappy, if I did not indulge the hope, 
 that wo shall bo able to beat them out of it in committee." 
 
 According to tliat plan of operations which had excited 
 80 much angry feeling, Mr Stanley's bill was allowed to 
 pass througli the secontl reading un(lisj)uted, but no sooner 
 had it come under coniinittcc than the l)attle began. 
 
 The lir.st and most important struggle was on the dura-
 
 1833.] DEBATE ON COMPENSATION. 157 
 
 tion of tte apprenticeship.* Mr Buxton moved an amend- 
 ment for limiting it to the shortest period necessary for 
 establishing the system of free labour, and suggested the 
 term of one year ; " for," he said, " if we are to have neither 
 wages nor the whip, neither hope nor fear, neither induce- 
 ment nor compulsion, how any one can suppose that we 
 shall be able to obtain the labour of the negToes, is to me 
 unintelligible." 
 
 After a spirited debate the amendment was lost, though 
 only by a minority of seven ; but, as Lord Howick observed, 
 the first fruits of the discussion were gathered the next day, 
 when Mr Stanley consented, in deference to the wishes of 
 the House, to reduce the period of apprenticeship from 
 twelve to seven years. 
 
 In the course of the debate on the 24th inst, Mr Stanley 
 "warned his honourable friend (the member for Wey- 
 mouth), that any expression falling from him would come 
 upon the minds of the negroes with much greater weight 
 than any similar expression coming from any other person," 
 
 In his reply, Mr Buxton said : — 
 
 " The right hon. gentleman has done me the honour to say that 
 the language which I hold towards the negroes may have some in- 
 fluence upon them. If I thought that were the case — if indeed the 
 faintest echo of my voice could ever reach them — most earnestly, 
 most emphatically, would I implore them, by every motive of duty, 
 gratitude, and self-interest, to do their part towards the peaceful 
 termination of their bondage. I would say to them, ' The time of 
 your deliverance is at hand, let that period be sacred, let it be de- 
 filed by no outrage, let it be stained by no blood, let not the hair of 
 a single planter be touched. Make any sacrifice, bear any indignity, 
 submit to any privation, rather than raise your hand against any 
 white man. Continue to wait and to work patiently ; trust impli- 
 citly to that great nation and paternal Government, who are labour- 
 ing for your release. Preserve peace and order to the utmost of yx)ur 
 power — obey the laws, both before and at the time of your Hbera- 
 tion — and when that period shall arrive, fulfil the expectations of 
 your friends in England, and the promises they have made in your 
 name, by the most orderly, diligent, and dutiful conduct ! ' " 
 
 In the division which followed, !Mr Buxton voted for the 
 grant of £20,000,000 to the planters,1 " as giving the best 
 
 * July 24. See Mirror of Parliament slowly rising off the sofa, and speak- 
 
 for the course of the Slavery Bill. ing witli great deliberation. " No : I 
 
 t The following afternoon his sister, would do tlie same again. I did it to 
 
 Mrs Forster, asked him "if he had save bloodshed; that was my motive, 
 
 not acted hastily in giving his vote for and I am glad I did it." 
 compensation?" "No," replied he.
 
 158 DEATH OF MR WILBERFORCE, [^t. 47. 
 
 chance and the fairest prospect of a peaceful termination of 
 slavery," but he moved as an amendment that one-half of 
 that sum should not be paid till the apprenticeship should 
 have terminated. He thought this would act as a check 
 upon the planters in their treatment of the apprentices. 
 This amendment was thrown out. 
 
 Mr Buxton thus writes to a friend on the 1st of August : — 
 " I must tell you how comfortable and happy I feel to-day. Last 
 night at twelve o'clock we got through the committee; the bill, 
 therefore, for the abolition of slavery must pass this session, and 
 may Providence make it a blessing to millions. To-morrow night 
 we have the report, and on Monday the third reading. How grand 
 it is to be so near the top of the mountain, which it has taken ten 
 years to climb ! " 
 
 The joy with which the abolitionists looked forward to 
 the speedy termination of their labours in behalf of the 
 slaves, was tempered by an event of deep interest to them — 
 the death of Mr Wilberforce. The great leader expired on 
 Monday the 29th of July, having, shortly before his death, 
 exclaimed with fervour, " Thank God that I should have 
 lived to witness a day in which England is willing to give 
 twenty millions sterling for the abolition of slavery." 
 
 The announcement of his death was received by the 
 House of Commons, then in the midst of the discussion on 
 compensation, with peculiar feeling. Mr Buxton referred to 
 the event, and in expressing his love and admiration for 
 the character of Mr Wilberforce, applied to him the beautiful 
 Ihics of Cowper : — 
 
 "A veteran warrior in tlie Christian field, 
 Wlio never saw the sword he could not wield ; 
 Whd, when occvision justified its use, 
 Had wit, as bright, as ready, to produce; 
 Could draw from records of an e irlier ago, 
 Or from philiisojihy's rnlightcn'd page 
 His rich material — and regale the ear 
 With strains it was a luxury to bear." 
 
 !Mr Buxton writes : — 
 
 "London, AufjiuH 8. 
 
 " I have been intensely engaged in winding up, or watching the 
 winding up, of this the main object of my life. The bill passed its 
 third reading last night, and I cannot but feel deeply relieved and 
 thankful, great a.s are its faidta. May a blessing be with it ! The 
 f\illeHt toleration we have, I trust, obtained. And now the thing is 
 done; and .all tlii' <hity respecting it, which remains for us, is to do 
 our titnioHt to rf^idiT both tlic i>e<iple of England and the negroes 
 Batisfied with it, and to labour for the religious instruction to the 
 lattec "
 
 1833.] THE WEST INDIES. 159 
 
 "On Tuesday, the 20th," writes Miss Buxton, "was the third 
 reading in the Lords. Dr Lushington came in afterwards, unex- 
 pectedly, to dinner; he was just setting off for his holidays, and 
 seemed very much pleased with the events of the session, which he 
 discussed in the most lively manner. Lord Althorp said to him in 
 the House, a few days ago, ' Well ! you and Buxton have wielded a 
 power too great for any individuals in this House. I hope we shall 
 never see such another instance.' Among other incidents, it was 
 mentioned that one day, in the House of Lords, Lord Grey went up 
 to my father to speak to him about yielding the 'removal' question. 
 The Duke of Wellington said, ' I see what the influence is under 
 which you are ; and if that individual is to have more power than 
 Lords and Commons both, we may as well give up the bill.' All the 
 Commons' ministers who were standing there were highly enter- 
 tained." 
 
 On the 28t]i of August, tlie Bill for the Total Abolition 
 of Slavery throughout the British Dominions received the 
 royal assent. " Would," wrote Miss Buxton to Miss Mac- 
 aulay, " that Mr Wilberforce had lived one fortnight longer, 
 that my father might have taken back to him fulfilled, 
 the task he gave him ten years ago ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 1834. 
 
 Great anxiety now began to be felt as to the manner in 
 which the Emancipation Act might be received in the West 
 Indies. The accounts of this event at length arrived, and 
 proved to be highly satisfactory. The planters had re- 
 ceived the new law without irritation ; the negroes without 
 excitement or insubordination ; and the Colonial Legisla- 
 tures immediately prepared to carry it into effect, on the 
 following 1st of August. 
 
 On the 17 th of March, Mr Stanley gave a most satisfac- 
 tory account, in the House, of the continued tranquillity and 
 prosperity of the West Indies, while awaiting the day of 
 freedom. Mr Buxton is described as "full of joy at Mr 
 Stanley's speech ; he says, ' I go to sleep thinking of it, I 
 wake thinking of it' " Some one said to him in the House, 
 in reference to Mr Stanley's statement, " This is worth liv- 
 ing for, and dying for." Indeed the cordial tone, not only 
 of his coadjutors, but of his late opponents also, was most 
 gratifying to him.
 
 160 BARON ROTHSCHILD. [^t. 48. 
 
 TO MISS BUXTON, AT EARLHAM. 
 
 "54, Devonshire Street, Fthruary 4, 1834. 
 
 " It is curious how many compliments we West Indian fanatics * 
 have had on the success of of our measure. I have just been in the 
 
 House ; and among a great variety of congratulators, I saw , 
 
 who said that nothing could be doing better ; and he added, that 
 having lately read my speeches from the first to the last, he must 
 confess that he was surprised to find how true and sound they had 
 been. Stanley whispered * I congratulate you.' I answered, * I 
 congratulate you.' 
 
 " But I now come from the House of Lords, where Lord Grey, in 
 reply to the Duke of Wellington, has been pronouncing a splendid 
 eulogium on 'that beneficent measure,' as it was called in the king's 
 speech, ' which extirpated the worst of all human evils ; ' and 
 taunting the Duke with having been a prophet of evil, whereas 
 nothing but good has as yet resulted. I am quite pleased. This is 
 the impression which the events of the day have made on me." 
 
 TO MISS BUXTON. 
 
 "Devonshire Street, Febi'uary li, 1834. 
 
 " We yesterday dined at Ham House to meet the Rothschilds ; 
 and very amusing it was. He (Rothschild) told us his life and ad- 
 ventures. He was the third son of the banker at Frankfort. ' There 
 was not,' he said, ' room enough for us all in that city. I dealt in 
 English goods. One great trader came there, who had the market 
 to himself : he was quite the great man, and did us a favour if he 
 Bold us goods. Somehow I offended him, and he refused to shew 
 me his patterns. This was on a Tuesday ; I said to my father, ' I 
 wiU go to England.' I could speak nothing but German. On the 
 Thursday I started ; the nearer I got to England, the cheaper goods 
 were. As soon as I got to Manchester, I laid out all my money, 
 things were so cheap ; and I made good profit. I soon found that 
 there were three profits — the raw material, the dyeing, and the 
 manufacturing. I said to the manufacturer, ' I will supply you 
 with material and dye, and you supply me with manufactured 
 goode.' So I got three profits instead of one, and I could sell goods 
 cheaper than anybody. In a short time I made my £20,000 into 
 £G0,000 My success all turned on one maxim. I said, I can do 
 what another man can, and so I am a match for the man with the 
 patterns, and for all the rest of them ! Another advantage I had. 
 I was an oH'haiid man. I made a bargain at once. When I was 
 settled in London, tlie East hulia Company had £800,000 worth of 
 gold to sell. I went to the sale, and bought it all. I knew the 
 Duke of Wellington must have it. I had bought a great many of 
 his l)ill.s at a discount. The Government sent for me, and said they 
 must liavo it. When they had got it, they did not know how to get 
 it to l'(jrtugal. I undertook all that, and I sent it through France j 
 and that was the best business I ever did.' 
 
 " Another maxim, on which he seemed to place great reliance, 
 
 • IIo overheard oiio member say to another, " So, after all, the fanatics 
 were right I "
 
 1834.] BAEON ROTHSCHILD. 161 
 
 was, never to have anything to do with an unlucky place or an un- 
 lucky man. ' I have seen,' said he, ' many clever men, very clever 
 men, who had not shoes to their feet. I never act with them. 
 Their advice sounds very well, but fate is against them ; they can- 
 not get on themselves ; and if they cannot do good to themselves, 
 how can they do good to me ? ' By aid of these maxims he has ac- 
 quired three millions of money. 
 
 " ' I hope,' said , ' that your children are not too fond of 
 
 money and business, to the exclusion of more important things. I 
 am sure you would not wish that.' Rothschild. — ' I am sure I 
 should wish that. I wish them to give mind, and soul, and heart, 
 and body, and everything to business ; that is the way to be happy. 
 It requires a great deal of boldness, and a great deal of caution, to 
 make a great fortune ; and when you have got it, it requires ten 
 times as much wit to keep it. If I were to listen to all the projects 
 proposed to me, I should ruin myself very soon. Stick to one 
 business, young man,' said he to Edward ; stick to your brewery, 
 and you may be the great brewer of London. Be a brewer, and a 
 banker, and a merchant, and a manufacturer, and you will soon be in 
 
 the Gazette One of my neighbours is a very ill-tempered 
 
 man ; he tries to vex me, and has built a great place for swine, close 
 to my walk. So, when I go out, I hear first, grunt, grunt, squeak, 
 squeak ; but this does me no harm. I am always in good humour. 
 Sometimes, to amuse myself, I give a beggar a guinea. He thinks 
 it is a mistake, and for fear I should find it out, off he runs as hard 
 as he can. I advise you to give a beggar a guinea sometimes ; it is 
 very amusing.' 
 
 " The daughters are very pleasing. The second son is a mighty 
 hunter ; and his father lets him buy any horses he likes. He lately 
 applied to the Emperor of Morocco, for a first-rate Arab horse. The 
 Emperor sent him a magnificent one, but he died as he landed in 
 England. The poor youth said very feelingly 'that was the greatest 
 misfortune he ever had suffered ; ' and I felt strong sympathy with 
 him. I forgot to say, that soon after M. Rothschild came to En- 
 gland, Bonaparte invaded Germany ; ' The Prince of Hesse Cassel,' 
 said Rothschild, ' gave my father his money ; there was no time to 
 be lost ; he sent it to me. I had £600,000 arrive unexpectedly by 
 the post ; and I put it to such good use, that the prince made me a 
 present of all his wine and his linen.' " 
 
 During the Easter recess, Mr Buxton thus writes from 
 Northrepps Cottage : — 
 
 " March 27, 1834. 
 
 "Now for a history of my day. After a cheerful breakfast I 
 lounged with a book to the Hall. It looks brighter than I expected; 
 the day so fine, the flowers so abundant, and the birds so happy. I am 
 going to sell my sheep, so there is an end of that sagacious specula- 
 tion. Anna Gumey called for me there and took me first to Mr 
 Law's, where I saw a great craniologist, who spent an hovir over my 
 head, and told me strange news of myself ; some hitting the mark, 
 and others far away from it.
 
 162 REFLECTIOXS. [^t. 48. 
 
 " Then we drove to Trimingham, where we looked at fossils, and 
 at the calm sea, and the land which I am to have for shooting. We 
 got home about two o'clock, and she read to me till our quiet lively 
 dinner; everything vastly agreeable. Moscow* was allowed to come 
 in and dine with us. After dinner, reading and a trifle of sleep, and 
 so on, till now. The only take off is, that I am quite out of my 
 element, hardly knowing what to do in the country, at this time of 
 year." 
 
 "April 13, 1834. 
 
 "My birthday is just passed : though I did not minute down ray 
 thoughts, it did not pass unheeded. How had I to exult and to 
 thank my God for His mercy with regard to the slave question ! On 
 the 17th of March, Stanley, in answer to a question from me, gave 
 a most highly encouraging account of what was going on in the West 
 Indies ; — the whip abolished, the negroes more industrious, no dis- 
 turbance, no murmur, no ruin to the planter. 
 
 "Three years ago who dreamt of such a termination? What 
 would I have given to secure such good tidings, even one year ago, 
 on the 19th of March, the day of my motion ! Do I say more than 
 the truth, when I say I would have given my life ? 
 
 " Blessed be God, for ever blessed, for this singular mercy ! 
 
 " I have now been walking in the garden, and having an hour of 
 earnest prayer. I was much affected by looking at the expanse of 
 the skies — the moon — the masses of cloud. They gave me a more 
 realising view of Him who created them all, that wonderful Being, 
 BO great as to govern the universe, so merciful as to regard such a 
 worm as I am, and to bear with my transgressions. 
 
 " Oh, that I might always carry with me the same awful sense of 
 His presence, and such a realiaation of His majesty and of His 
 goodness ! " 
 
 The 1st of August 1834, the day on which the emanci- 
 pation of the slaves was to take place, was drawing near. 
 
 Five days before he thus looks forward to it iu his book 
 of meditations : — 
 
 "July 27, Sunday. 
 
 " On Friday next, slavery is to cease throughout the British 
 colonies ! I wished, therefore, to have a season of deep retirement 
 of soul, of earnest prayer, and of close communion with my God, 
 and, for this purpose, I went to a Friends' meeting. I began with 
 earnest prayer for the influence of the Holy Spirit that He should 
 take tljc li"lm in all our doings, and navigate ua in ])eaco and safety 
 tlirougliout our wlxile voyage. Then, in deep humiliation, in a sense 
 of my own great guilt and ingratitude, I made confession of such 
 Bins as occurred to ine, and ploadcd hard with God, for Christ's sake, 
 'in whom we have redemption througli His blood; even the forgive- 
 ni!HH of sins.' This prayer was offered in some trouble of soul, and 
 in a full sense that every other cord was broken, and that the only 
 
 • A favourite NcwfuuiuIIiind dog.
 
 1834.] THE DAY OF FREEDOM. 163 
 
 cable by which I could hold on was forgiveness through Christ. 
 Then I returned thanks — I was sensibly affected with a view of 
 God's dealings with me. Each one knows the history of himself, 
 and many things are known to him which are concealed from others 
 — perhaps, therefore, others could recount similar experience, but 
 to me it appears that there has been a peculiar guidance over 
 me ; and that God, designing to commit to me in His goodness some 
 share in the emancipation of the negroes, had originated contrivances, 
 and ordered events singularly suitable for such a result. Then I 
 prayed for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on those 700,000 
 oppressed and persecuted children of our common Father, who will 
 be liberated on that day. Thou, who hast been indeed their 
 merciful Deliverer, who, for the oppression of the poor and the 
 sighing of the needy, hast arisen and set them in safety ; add, we 
 beseech thee, to all Thy benefits, by such an effusion and outpouring 
 of Thy Spirit, as shall make them a people, peculiarly obedient to 
 Thy commandments, and peculiarly visited by Thy presence, and 
 that, as by Thy goodness they are changed from slaves to freemen, 
 they may also be transformed from heathens into Christians; in 
 deed, in spirit, and in truth. 
 
 "And now I commend next Friday to Thee, my merciful God. 
 May it be a happy day, and the harbinger of many, many happy 
 days, to one very very dear to me, and to multitudes for whom I 
 have been favoured long to labour I " 
 
 The anxiously expected 1st of August at length, arrived. 
 It was kept very generally throughout England as a day of 
 rejoicing. To Mr Buxton it was rendered memorable, not 
 only by the consummation of that gi-eat work to which his 
 heart had so ardently been given, but also because on this 
 day his eldest daughter was married to Andrew Johnston, 
 Esq., of Eenny Hill in Fifeshire, M.P. for St AndreAvs. He 
 thus alluded to the circumstance, in a letter to the Rev. Dr 
 Philip at Cape Town : " I surrendered my vocation, and, 
 next to Macaulay, my best human helper in it, on the same 
 day ; and I am not only well contented, but very happy, 
 and very thankful, that she is so bestowed." 
 
 A large circle of his connexions assembled at his house 
 on the occasion, and expressed the lively interest with which 
 they had sympathised in his public labours, by presenting 
 him with two handsome pieces of plate, in commemoration 
 of the emancipation of the slaves. 
 
 It was indeed a day which called forth the expression of 
 his deepest feelings of thankfalness, and of his most earnest 
 desires for blessings on those near and afar off, to whom 
 the day was one of such signal importance.
 
 164 THE DAY OF FREEDOM. [^t. 48. 
 
 "Never had we," he said, "such a call for thanksgiving; never 
 such occasion to pray for a blessing, as upon the work of this day. 
 It is demonstration to our understandings, it is vision to our minds, 
 that God has done it. We had no might, neither knew we what to 
 do. The battle was not ours, but God's. The Lord has been 
 with us." 
 
 TO MRS UPCHER. 
 
 " Augxist 1, 1834, Four o'clock. 
 " Mt Dear Friend. — The bride is just off. Everything has passed 
 off to admiration, and there is not a slave in the British colonies ! 
 "Mark the seal, 'safe and satisfactory.'" 
 
 In tlie evening, tlie leading Abolitionists dined together 
 at the Freemasons' Tavern ; the Earl of Mulgrave, the late 
 Governor of Jamaica, in the chair. 
 
 But many of those who shared in the festivities of the 
 day, could not divest themselves of a feeling of uneasiness, 
 ■when they thought of what might, at that very time, be 
 passing in the West Indies. The period that intervened 
 between August 1833, when Mr Stanley's measure became 
 law, and August 1, 1834, when it was to take effect, had, 
 indeed, passed away in unexampled tranquillity. But would 
 not the gloomy predictions of the West Indians be now ful- 
 filled? The bloodshed, the rioting, the drunkenness, and 
 confusion they had so often foretold — would not these tar- 
 nish the lustre of this glorious deed of the British people 1 
 
 It was, therefore, with feelings of deep solicitude, that 
 Mr Buxton and his friends awaited the news from the colo- 
 nies. He was at Northrepps Hall, when, on the 10th of 
 September, a large pile of letters came in with the colonial 
 stamps upon them. Well knowing that they would contain 
 the long-looked for intelligence, he took them, still sealed, 
 in his hand, and walked out into the wood ; desiring no 
 witness but One, of the emotion and anxiety he experienced. 
 He opened them : and deep indeed was his joy and grati- 
 tude to God, when he found that one letter after another 
 was filled with accounts of the admirable conduct of the 
 negroes on the great day of freedom. Throughout the 
 colonics the churches and chapels had been thrown open, 
 and the slaves liad crowded into them, on the evening of 
 the 31st of .July. As the hour of midnight ajjproachcd, 
 tliey fell upon tlicir knees, and awaited the solemn moniL'iit 
 all luislicd in silent prayer. When twelve sounded from 
 the chapel Ijclls, they sprang upon their feet, and throu^ih
 
 1834.] RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION. 165 
 
 every island rang the glad sound of thanksgiving to the 
 Father of all ; for the chains were broken, and the slaves 
 were free, 
 
 TO MRS BUXTON. 
 
 " Bellfield, November 23, 1834. 
 
 " I could not get a place in the Dorchester mail, so I took my 
 place to Salisbury in another. Soon after I was seated, the Bishop 
 of Barbadoes got in, and a great deal of very interesting conversation 
 we had. He has received letters from many parts of his diocese, 
 giving the most encouraging accounts. At Antigua seven important 
 results have followed emancipation : — 
 
 " First : Wives and husbands hitherto living on different estates 
 began to live together. 
 
 " Second : The number of marriages greatly increased. One of 
 his clergy had married ten couple a week since the 1st of August. 
 
 " Third : The schools greatly increased ; a hundred children were 
 added in one district. 
 
 " Fourth : The planters complain that their whole weeding gang, 
 instead of going to work, go to school. 
 
 " Fifth : All the young women cease to work in the fields, and 
 are learning female employments. 
 
 " Sixth : Friendly societies for mutual relief have increased. 
 
 " Seventh : The work of the clergyman is doubled. One of the 
 chapels which held 300 is being enlarged, so as to contain 900, and 
 will not be large enough. 
 
 " The utmost desire is felt by the negroes for religious instruc- 
 tion, and their children are in every way as quick in learning as the 
 whites. The most intelligent and influential of the Antigua planters 
 tells him that the experiment is answering to his entire satisfaction. 
 It will require some time, he says, for the planters to overcome their 
 prejudices against machinery. He has not heard of an act of vio- 
 lence anywhere. The negroes are a very affectionate and docile 
 race. He has seventy-seven clergymen in his diocese, and most of 
 them zealous, good men. Twenty young men have been educated 
 at Codrington College for the Church ; and some of them, who are 
 already ordained, are excellent ministers." 
 
 CHAPTEK XXL 
 
 1835. 
 The best news continued to arrive from the West Indies of 
 the industry and excellent behaviour of the negroes. Crime 
 had rapidly diminished ; marriages had considerably in- 
 creased; education and religion were progressuig. "The 
 accounts from the West Indies are capital," writes Mr 
 Buxton, March 7, 1835 ; " this puts me into excellent 
 spirits. The truth is, my spirits rise and fall according to 
 the iatelligcuce fi-oni that quarter."
 
 166 GOOD NEWS FROM WEST INDIES. [^t. 48. 
 
 TO HIS SISTEB, MISS BUXTON, N0RTHREPP3 COTTAGE. 
 
 " House of Commons, March 16, 1835. 
 " I must give you a taste of the good news which I have received 
 within this hour. Lord Aberdeen said yesterday that every thing 
 was going on marvellously well in the West Indies. The negroes 
 quiet, dutiful, diligent. * It is quite amazing, it is contrary to rea- 
 son, it cannot be accounted for, but so it is ! ' Just now Stanley 
 came over to me, saying he had a letter from Lord Sligo* to-day, 
 dated the 29th January. He read me the greater part of it, and 
 most gratifying it was. The Christmas hoUdays had gone off more 
 quietly than for many years. No case of riot had been reported, 
 and tlae negroes had all returned to their work in good humour. 
 The produce of the crop sent to England would be a good average 
 one. Lord Sligo had recalled all his troops and vessels, (which had 
 gone out to quell possible disturbances,) because everything waa 
 perfectly quiet. ' In short,' said Stanley, ' it is impossible that 
 matters can be better than in the focus of danger — Jamaica ; except 
 it be,' he added, 'in Antigua.' Is not that something like good 
 news ? It makes me two inches higher for pride." 
 
 TO LORD SUFFIELD. 
 
 " March m5. 
 " The news from every part of the slave coloniee is most excellent. 
 I hear this from a variety of quarters — friends, enemies, colonial 
 bishops, and the Secretary of State. I saw a letter from the Bishop 
 of Jamaica to the Bishop of Loudon, saying everything that we used 
 to say ; I recollect one expression — ' The industry of the negroes 
 when working for wages has so entirely belied the apprehensions of 
 the planters here, that I have not a doubt of the entire success of 
 the emancipation measure.' In short, we have every reason to be 
 hapi)y and to be thankful." 
 
 The following memorandum, in Mr Buxton's handwriting, 
 appears on the last page of a book of " Papers on the abo- 
 lition of slavery : " — 
 
 "Januanj 7, 1836. 
 
 " I have finished this collection of papers with a degree of satis- 
 faction and thankfulness which I cannot express. My expectations 
 are surpassed, God's blessing has been on this perilous work of hu- 
 manity." 
 
 On the 22d of March he moved for a committee to in- 
 quire into the working of the apprenticeship system. His 
 investigations on that subject had cost him much time and 
 labour ; and he now brought forth a mass of statistical 
 facts, proving on the one hand that the negroes had behaved 
 extremely well, and on the other that they had been harassed 
 by vexatious by-law.s and cruel puni.sliuicnts. " This is my 
 
 • Then Governor of Jamaica.
 
 1835.] NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 1G7 
 
 case," he said, in conclusion ; " it shews at least this : that 
 if the planters have misconducted themselves, they can find 
 no excuse for it in the conduct of the negroes. There has 
 been no disappointment in that quarter." 
 
 The committee was granted, and Sir George Grey (the 
 Under Secretary for the Colonies) soon afterwards intro- 
 duced a bill for enforcing, in Jamaica, certain measures in 
 favour of the negroes. 
 
 The Aborigines' Committee had lil^ewise been re-ap- 
 pointed, and Mr Buxton's attention to these two subjects, 
 in addition to matters connected with them, occupied him 
 closely. A friend, who spent a day at his house in Devon- 
 shire Street during the spring of this year, described it as 
 " curious, and almost fearful, to witness the multiplicity of 
 business, the wave upon wave of deep interests which poured 
 in upon him. No time for air or exercise, no time for re- 
 laxation." His strength was barely equal to the claims upon 
 it. " Oh, how we shall throw up our hats," he said, 
 " when I am out of Parliament ! " 
 
 Mr Buxton's friends were anxious that he should not ex- 
 pose his broken health to the fatigue of another Parliament. 
 His micle, Mr Charles Buxton, had written him a pressing 
 letter upon this subject. In reply, he says : — 
 
 " . . . . At present I am remarkably well, have no headache, and 
 no complaint, except rather too good an appetite. I have received 
 very encouraging accounts from the West Indies of the conduct of 
 the negroes, and this I am sure will please you. Three years ago, it 
 appeared by official returns, that in Jamaica there were 300,000 
 flaggings with the cart-whip in a year. Last year, the number was 
 reduced nine-tenths, from 300,000 to 30,000. The result being such, 
 I grudge neither the time, nor the money, nor the labour, nor the 
 health I have spent on this object; and I hope this consideration 
 will make you better satisfied with my having been in Parliament. 
 Can I, as an honest man, retire now, when I know for a certainty, 
 that the efiect of my motion in the House last year and the year be- 
 fore, has been to frighten the magistrates, and to save the backs of 
 thousands of poor fellows from unmerciful floggings ? 
 
 "' You may say what you please, I know it is all in kindness for 
 me, but I also know that if you were in my place, no personal con- 
 sideration would be sufiicient to prevail on you to abandon your 
 duty." 
 
 In one of Mr O'ConneU's speeches on some Irish ques- 
 tion, he exclaimed, " Oh ! I wish we were blacks ! If the 
 Irish people were but black, we should have the honourable 
 
 N
 
 168 IRISH CHURCH. [^t. 49. 
 
 member for Weymoutli coming down as large as life, sup- 
 ported by all ' the friends of humanity ' in the back rows, 
 to advocate their cause." 
 
 This allegation was jocosely made, but it was not en- 
 tirely wide of the truth. Everything connected with the 
 African race seemed to touch a chord of feeling in Mr Bux- 
 ton's heart, and to bear a stronger sway over his sympathies 
 than any other subjects could attain. 
 
 Yet the affairs of Ireland deeply interested him. "Never," 
 he said, in 1835, "did I make any public subject, except 
 slavery, a matter of so much prayer as this question of the 
 Irish Church." Being as he was a thorough Whig, the na- 
 tural bias of his mind was to support the measures of that 
 party. 
 
 " But," said he, " the Irish Church is too sacred. I am a Protest- 
 ant and a churchman, and I would not sacrifice an iota of either for 
 all the political connexions in the world ; so I was for some time a 
 waverer ; exactly what Hume called a loose fish, and which sort of 
 loose fish he afterwards described as a wolf in sheep's clothing. Ru- 
 mour ran that the Whigs were going to assign part of the Church 
 revenues to the Roman Catholics. I resolved to resist, having come 
 to the conclusion that if a surplus were proved, it ought to be given 
 to religious education. To my satisfaction, I found that the plan I 
 had worked out in my closet, and which I meant to adhere to, was 
 precisely what they had resolved on." 
 
 Some of the reasons which had brought him to this de- 
 cision, are thus mentioned in a rough memorandum : — 
 
 " £700 tithes from parish of liiUeen :— you give £75 to your work- 
 ing ourate, and £C25 to Sir H. L., at Bath. Pray is this a religious 
 use, or ecclesiastical? I have a butler; pay him £700. He, too 
 rich to work, hires a deputy for £75. I say, as the deputy does the 
 work, I may as well hire him ; save £625. Is my establishment in 
 danger ? No ; but more means to make it more perfect in other re- 
 spects. 
 
 " Church not in danger. Sir H. L. in danger — of being obliged to 
 do his duty." 
 
 He moved, however, as an amendment to Lord John 
 UusscU's motion, the insertion of the words "moral and 
 religious," instead of " general " education ; and a provision 
 for tlie resumption of the surplus by the Church, when re- 
 quired.* 
 
 The fctllowiiig letter was addressed, after that debate, to 
 his two younger sons at Northrepps : — 
 
 * Iliiiisard, Ai'i-il 2, 1835.
 
 1835.] CHURCH QUESTIONS. IGD 
 
 " Devonshire Street, April 3, 1835. 
 
 " Mt Dear Fowell and Charles, — C. will tell you how I have 
 been engaged this week. It has been very laborious work. I did 
 not get to bed this morning till broad daylight, near seven o'clock; 
 so I suppose jon were up before I was down. 
 
 " I have scarcely time to write, as I must be at the House of 
 Commons again early, and there I shall be kept all night, I suppose ; 
 but I am quite equal to the exertion, and (I must confess it) some- 
 what cheered and exhilarated by the success of last night's effort. 
 Work hard, my lads, and what you do learn, remember ; fix it in 
 your minds, and then write it in your commonplace books. The 
 passage of my speech last night which was best liked was a quota- 
 tion picked up by me some thirty years ago, when I was a youth — 
 planted in my mind — and tiiere it was when I wanted it. I have 
 just been taking a delightful walk with your dear sister Priscilla, 
 talking about slavery, and savages, and slave trade. Whenever I 
 want to clear and brighten up my mind, I find nothing so effectual 
 as an interchange of thoughts with her. 
 
 " Give my best love to the ladies at the Cottage, and tell them, 
 that there, on the table before me, lie their Caffre papers, and I now 
 and then glance at them, and smile at them as a treasure. Tell Miss 
 Glover I am going to treat her as the king treated Daniel. I call 
 upon her, not only to interpret my dream, but to tell me what my 
 dream is. 
 
 " 1 want her to find a passage to this effect: ' Our religion braves 
 the face of day ; it does not skulk from truth.' But where is it ? 
 Oh, that is more than I know. I think it is either in a volume of 
 South,* or in the fourth volume of Hopkins ; and I think it is on 
 the bottom of the left-hand page, and marked by me. If she can 
 find it by these clear directions, and will send it to me, the world 
 shall have it. I think you might ride over to Sheringham, to tell 
 them all the news ; they would be so pleased to find that we were 
 pleased. 
 
 " I was delighted to have Edward at the House last night. I was 
 sure of one auditor, who would listen attentively, and judge with 
 partial acuteness." 
 
 Mr Buxton's readiness to go hand-in-liand with Dissent- 
 ers in any work of mercy, and the hearty friendship with. 
 which he was honoured by many eminent Christians of dif- 
 ferent persuasions, gave rise to an impression, that he had 
 little affection for the Established Church. This impression 
 was entirely erroneous. 
 
 " I look up," he said, " to the Established Church with grateful 
 
 • He_ quoted this passage from Dr the search of the inquisitive, to the 
 
 South, in his speech, in the following inspection of the severest and most 
 
 year. It stands thus :—" Some of their awaliened reason ; for, being secure of 
 
 (the Roman Catholic) clergy deal with her substantial truth ami purity, she 
 
 their religion as with a great crime ; knows, that for her to be seen an^i 
 
 if it is discovered, they are undone. looked into, is to be embraced and ad- 
 
 But our religion is a religion thaf. dares mired." 
 to be understood, that offers itself lo
 
 170 NOTES FOR FAMILY PRAYERS. [^t. 49. 
 
 affection ; I hail her as the great bulwark of religious truth, and I 
 can conceive no calamity greater than any inroad made on her eecu- 
 rity. But I must avow that I am an enemy to every species of in- 
 tolerance; justice to every man, charity to every man, are parts of 
 the religion I profess." 
 
 Thrown, as he had been, amongst pious and benevolent 
 Dissenters, he could not but rejoice in the deep fellowship 
 of heart which existed between them and him ; but he was 
 not the less firmly attached to his own branch of the Church 
 of Christ : he loved her sublime and solemn ritual, and he 
 looked upon her as a most important means of preserving 
 and propagatmg Christian truth. But he could not consi- 
 der any particular form of Church government as having 
 come from God, and therefore too sacred to be touched by 
 the hand of man. Accordingly, his desire to increase the 
 efficiency of the Church led him to seek the reform of those 
 abuses which, during the lapse of ages, had crept into her 
 institutions. But on this, as on all other important occa- 
 sions, he did not act Avithout deep deliberation and earnest 
 prayer for guidance. In the lists * which he made almost 
 every Sunday, of the subjects to be dwelt upon in his family 
 prayers, " the Church " is, at this period, usually inserted 
 as one on which he required help and direction. 
 
 For instance, the following notes for his family prayers 
 were written by him when about to leave Northrepps i:i 
 February 183G, to engage in the duties of the session : — 
 
 " In removing, we pray that that merciful Providence, which has 
 stood round about us, may continue; sheltered, refreshed, coun- 
 selled, strengthened by thee. Ward off danger, baffle our enemy, 
 rob sin of its temptations ; make us wholly, in inward thoughts and 
 outward deeds, thine own. 
 
 " Be thou the mover of every work in which we engage. 
 
 " The counsellor to teach us what to say and do. 
 
 " The source of strength, confidence, and comfort. 
 
 " May wo labour, not with eye-service, but in singleness of heart. 
 
 " Bless those rising from bondage, and all efforts on their behalf; 
 tlie heathen, suffering from the evils and oppression of men, calling 
 themselves Christians ; and may a choice blessing rest on the efforts 
 made for their physical advantage, and religious advancement. 
 
 " Bless the spread of education, and of Thy truth. 
 
 " Bless mc in dealing with the Church; no self-will, no meaner 
 iiiotivo than a desire to advance its interests." 
 
 Nor did he omit to use every means of rendering himself 
 
 • TlicNc wuru iiicro iiotcM, to aid liiiii mcilitations, from whicli extracts have 
 ill hit family <lcvutioii.s ; tlicy wci c not been givuu botbro. 
 tliu auuio M the papers of rcligiuu:!
 
 1835.] IRISH TITHE BILL. 171 
 
 fully acquainted witli the case. Writing to the Bishop of 
 London to request information on some points connected 
 with it, he adds, — " I trust the importance of the subject, 
 and my anxiety to be fully persuaded as to my vote upon it, 
 will be my excuse for giving your lordship so much trouble." 
 These examples prove, that whether his conduct on these 
 Church questions did or did not deserve the severe reproba- 
 tion which it received from many of his religious friends, it 
 was, at least, not undertaken in a spirit of rash self-confidence. 
 The second reading of Lord John Russell's Irish Tithe 
 Bill was brought forward on the 1st of June. Mr Buxton 
 argued in favour of each of the three leading clauses, and 
 strongly supported the plan of gi^dng the surplus fund (after 
 the new distribution of the Church revenues) to defray the 
 expense of a system of education in which as much of the 
 Bible was to be read as the Roman Catholics would allow. 
 
 " Do I say that this is enough ? No ! I lament that Scripture i? 
 
 thus sparingly doled out But though this system does not 
 
 do all, it does much. It teaches the Catholic to read — it gives him 
 a portion of Scripture to read. I have better faith," he added, 
 '•■ in the truth of my religion, than to dread that instruction can 
 damage it ; and this is good, old, sound, Protestant doctrine." 
 
 He concluded by pointing out how little the harsh system 
 hitherto pursued, had done towards the spread of truth: — 
 
 " How has it been," he a»sked, " that truth itself, backed by a 
 Protestant establishment, by a Protestant king, a Protestant army, 
 a Protestant Parliament — that truth itself, so far from advancing, 
 Las not kept her ground against error ? My solution of the question 
 is, that we have resorted to force where reason alone could prevail. 
 We have forgotten that though the sword may do its work, — mow 
 down armies, and subdue nations — it cannot carry conviction to 
 the understanding of men; nay, the very use of force tends to create 
 a barrier to the reception of that truth which it intends to promote. 
 We have forgotten that there is something in the human breast — 
 no base or sordid feeling, the same which makes a generous mind 
 cleave with double affection to a distressed and injured friend, and 
 which makes men cleave with tenfold fondness — deaf to reason, 
 deaf to remonstrance, reckless of interest, prodigal of life — to a per- 
 secuted religion. I charge the failure of Protestant truth in convert- 
 ing the Irish upon the head of Protestant ascendancy. 
 
 " Protestant ascendancy ! It sounds well enough in English ears. 
 It seems to mean no more than the Church under the peculiar pro- 
 tection of the State. But happy had it been for the Protestant 
 Church had Protestant ascendancy never been heard of — happy had 
 it been had we dared to present our truth to the Irish, not in ai-ms,
 
 172 MR BUXTON'S SPEECH. [^t. 49. 
 
 not in pomp, not decorated with the symbols of earthly power, but 
 in that lowliness and gentleness which naturally belong to it. 
 
 " But I dare not trespass longer on the House. I like the bill, 
 and shall vote for it : first, because tithe is adjusted; secondly, be- 
 cause stipend is to be measured by duty; thirdly, because education 
 is to be granted. I like, and shall vote for the bill, lastly, because 
 it bears no affinity to the old, overbearing system of Protestant 
 ascendancy ; and because, as I have so often said, it gives my faith 
 fair play ; because, at last, the Protestant religion will do herself 
 justice. Stripped of her odious disguise, she will appear to the 
 Irish what we know she is. She will appear in her natural, her 
 peaceful, her charitable, her attractive character." 
 
 This speech gave great displeasure to many of his clerical 
 friends, who conceived that he was bent on the ruin — 
 though all he desired was the temperate reform — of the 
 Irish Church establishment ; and although " he had taken 
 the opportunity," as he writes the day after the debate, "of 
 separating himself from the Radicals, by condemning 
 Hume's proposal for paying church-rates out of the money 
 to be saved from bishops and deans." 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 1836. 
 Overwrought with toil and anxiety, Mr Buxton was de- 
 lighted to escape to Scotland in the beginning of August, 
 While he was on this tour, the Marquis of Breadalbane, 
 with true Highland hospitality, placed one of his moors at 
 his disposal, and, accordingly, he remained for some time 
 at Dalmally, and afterwards at Luib, * enjoying the sport 
 afforded by the surrounding country. 
 
 Wishing to express his sense of this act of kindness, he 
 applied to his relative, Mr Llewellyn Lloyd t, who was re- 
 siding in Sweden, engaging liim to use his best exertions to 
 ]irocure as many live capercailzie as possible, as a present to 
 Lord Breadalbane. 
 
 The capercailzie, or cock of the woods, as it is well known, 
 were in former times denizens of the Scotch forests ; but 
 the last specimen was shot about a hundred years ago in 
 I'ortlishire. They are large birds, a full-gi'own cock weigh- 
 
 ♦ Wlillo at Luib Inn, ho was ron- was tlio replv ; "but the Itwt day or 
 
 doro'l uneasy, aft or twii or thrcii days, two lio has been out shooting with 
 
 l>y thi; noii-a]>jicarancu (if his lottors. you." 
 
 "I uiidurstood ynu liad a po-st hero," f Aullior of " Novtheru Field 
 
 B;iid lio to tholttudloid. "Uh yes, sir," Sports."
 
 1836.] DEATH OF MRS HO ARE. 173 
 
 ing about twelve pounds ; they live, for the most part, in 
 larch forests, and are found throughout Sweden and Nor- 
 way. Mr Lloyd sent advertisements for live capercailzie, 
 to the vUlages up the country; these advertisements, accord- 
 ing to the Swedish custom, were read from the pulpits after 
 divine service, and in the course of the winter, thirteen cocks 
 and sixteen hens were procured, which were placed under 
 the care of Larry Banvill, (j\Ir Buxton's faithful Irish game- 
 keeper,) who had been sent to Sweden for the purpose, and 
 by whom they were successfully conveyed to • Taymouth 
 Castle. After a time, they were all turned out into the 
 larch woods at Taymouth, in which they have thriven so 
 well, that they are now stated to amount to about four 
 thousand ; and as several other proprietors have followed 
 the example, and have introduced them from Sweden, there 
 is every reason to expect that this fine bird will become 
 once more naturalised in Scotland. 
 
 TO THE BISHOP OF CALCUTTA. 
 
 "Renny Hill, Fife, Scjyfemhe?- 10 , 1S3C. 
 " Our minds have been occupied of late, by a most sad event, the 
 death of my wife's sister. I am sure you must remember Mrs 
 Samuel Hoare of Hampstead. I hardly know how to speak of her 
 as I ought ; she was almost as dear to me as anything upon earth. 
 For more than thirty years I have been united to her in the closest 
 intimacy. In all that time I cannot recollect one moment's ruffle 
 between us, or one word which betokened anything but affection or 
 love. But what is my loss, compared with that of her husband and 
 children ? She came as near perfection as any human being I ever 
 knew. It was not that she had one kind of merit carried to a gi-eat 
 height. She possessed each accomplishment of a female and a 
 Christian in the same rare degree. Soft and gentle as she was, she 
 was no less steadfast, firm, and immovable. To these moral quali- 
 ties, to the most winning manners, to a noble countenance, to the 
 utmost refinement and delicacy, she joined an intellect of a very 
 high order. Her views on every subject were broad and capacious. 
 
 There was nothing petty about her She laid out her talents 
 
 to the best advantage, and never was idle. She read a great deal, 
 and turned all her reading to account, as her Tracts, and her Hints 
 
 on early Education evince I know not why I pour out all 
 
 this to you, but my mind and my pen can turn to no other subject." 
 
 After spending a few weeks at Renny Hill, the seat of 
 his son-in-law, ]\Ir Johnston, he returned to Northrepps Hall, 
 and resumed the usual tenor of his life there during the autum- 
 nal months. Every year seemed to increase his delight at 
 leavino; behind him the cares and turmoUs of London.
 
 174 LIFE AT NORTHREPPS. [JEi. 50. 
 
 His system on coming into the country was, after a 
 tliorough arrangement of his personal affairs, to abandon 
 the first few weeks to the relaxation of field sports. To- 
 Avards the end of October he resumed his settled occupa- 
 tions, and was strict in devoting to them the best hours of 
 the day. He thus adapted to himself the well-known lines 
 of Sir William Jones : — 
 
 " Secure six hours for thought, and one for prayer, 
 Four in the fields for exercise aud air, 
 The rest let converse, sleep, and business share." 
 
 Six houi^ may appear a large proportion of his day to give 
 to reflection, but his power of sustained and concentrated 
 thought was unquestionably the most remarkable feature of 
 his mind. Not, indeed, that he had a turn for meditation 
 upon speculative or philosophical questions, but when (as 
 very often happened) his decision was required upon practi- 
 cal matters of an intricate character, he would wrap his 
 mind in reflection upon them, with an intensity not often 
 equalled. He could not, like some, take a question by 
 storm, and in a moment put every doubt to flight ; he 
 seemed to give every difficulty its fullest weight, and to 
 balance the arguments on one side against the arguments 
 on the other, with accurate care ; giving them such close 
 attention, that whatever might be going on around him, his 
 mind could scarcely be diverted by anything from its track. 
 When going to London with various important matters on 
 his hands, he would often take a list of them with him, 
 and, going regularly through it, would clench his mind 
 upon them one after the other, till by dint of strenuous 
 thought, he had mastered all their bearings and made up 
 his mind for ever. Once decided, he seldom turned to the 
 question again. His character may be said to have been 
 formed of a durable material, so that an impression once 
 cfi"cctually made, seemed never to be obliterated, scarcely 
 even to lose the sharpness of its edge, by the lapse of 
 years.* This quality was seen in lesser as well as in greater 
 matters, and in no instance was it more displayed than in 
 the important point of order. The love of order, and 
 
 • In early life he wa« often unpunc- worship and joining in the confession, 
 
 tual in his attondanco at church ; but lie was thoroughly convinced, and was 
 
 nftcr hearing a Kcriiion from the Ilov. never again (as ho said hiinsclf, thirty 
 
 Samuel Crowllicr, on tlie duly of being years after), lalo at church througli 
 
 jproBcnl ut the beginning of pubhc carelessness.
 
 1836.] HABITS OF ORDER. 175 
 
 power to maintain it, had certainly not been given liini by 
 nature ; for many busy years of his life, his study, wher- 
 ever it might happen to be, seemed a chaos of confusion, 
 crowded with heaps of books and papers, letters and docu- 
 ments, unsorted and unlabelled, — nor would he allow any 
 one to touch them. But in the year 1827, he was vividly 
 impressed by a casual view of the order and precision main- 
 tained in one of the Government offices. After the illness 
 of that year, when he could not bear mental application, a 
 favourable opportunity presented itself for carrying out his 
 resolution, to have his " papers in subjection." For three 
 weeks he devoted himself, with his domestic helpers, to 
 this task ; every document in his possession, pubhc and 
 private, was looked over, folded to a certain size, with its 
 contents accurately endorsed upon it, and then classified. 
 The parcels of papers were tied up in boards made to the 
 same size, legibly marked ; the more copious subjects, such 
 as slavery, filling many of these packets, under different 
 Bubdivisions. Pigeon holes in his book-cases and other 
 expedients were provided, by which these packets were so 
 placed as to be instantly accessible. The work once ac- 
 complished, he never relaxed in it again ; from this time to 
 the end of his life every paper that came into his hands 
 was subjected to the same regulations, and his various 
 secretaries will remember the playful but unremitting strict- 
 ness, with which he required the execution of his plans in 
 this respect. The same principle extended to all his pecu- 
 niary aifairs. He had some unalterable rules about money 
 matters which preserved him from the dangers that might 
 otherwise have resulted from his natural tendency to free 
 expenditure. In his private accounts he was exact, but 
 not minute ; and once a year he thoroughly investigated 
 the whole state of his property. At the beginning of his 
 private ledger, the following sentences were written : — 
 
 "'What need so much provision for so short a journey.' Hop- 
 kins, vol. iv. p. 57. 
 
 " ' What a nothing it is that we make so much of, and follow so 
 greedily, and hold so fast ! ' — Baxter, vol. iii. p. 429. 
 
 " ' To work our own contentment, we should not labour so much 
 to increase our substance as to moderate our desires.' — Bishop 
 Sanderson. 
 
 " ' He that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in
 
 176 LOVE OF READING. [^t. 50. 
 
 the midst of his clays, and at his end shall be a fool.' " — Jeremiah, 
 chap. xvii. verse 11. 
 
 He "was an excellent man of business, handling minute 
 details with ease and unfailing patience, yet always keeping 
 his eye fixed upon their general scope and bearing. Before 
 undertaking anything, he would ponder over the matter for 
 days together, weighing it and examining it again and again 
 before he put his shoulder to the wheel. But though he 
 was too deliberate to be a vehement man, he was in the 
 highest degree energetic. He feared neither fatigue nor 
 labour. When once resolved to act, he threw his whole 
 heart and soul into the attainment of the object before him; 
 every wish and feeling became swept into the vortex ; 
 nothing else seemed capable of attracting his interest, nor 
 would he leave it till it was done, and done well. 
 
 Except that his hospitalities were more bounded by 
 want of room, liis life at Northrepps was much the same as 
 it had been at Cromer Hall, domestic, yet social. The 
 mornings were spent, as has been said, in his study or 
 with his gun ; and after dinner he usually lay upon the 
 sofa, while some one read aloud to him from the passing 
 literature of the day. Reading, in fact, filled up every 
 leisure hour ; he never tired of listening to it. " Well, 
 what shall we read 1 " was the first question upon his en- 
 tering the drawing-room He had a great taste for 
 biography, perhaps stUl more for works of humour; but 
 especially he had, as he said himself, an " insatiable thirst 
 for military adventure." His love of poetry has been 
 alluded to before, and he endeavoured to cultivate the 
 same taste in those about him. Eveiy Sunday evening 
 his children were expected to repeat a passage of poetry, 
 and he always required the utmost fluency and accuracy in 
 tlie repetition : he insisted also on the reciter looking him 
 full in the face while going through the task. He distri- 
 Tmtcd Ills rewards freely, and his guests used to be play- 
 fully invited to join in the exercise, and received their half- 
 crown with the rest. His frequent quotations (especially 
 from Sliakspeare, I'opc and I )ry(len) shewed how thoroughly 
 his mind was imbued with the writings of the principal 
 English poets. Johnson's " Vanity of Human Wishes" was 
 a favourite with him. On the well-known lines —
 
 1836.] DELIGHT IN POETRY. 177 
 
 " In life's last scene, what prodigies arise — 
 Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise." 
 
 " I take that,'' he remarked, "to be one of the truest things 
 ever said in poetry; but," he added, "the word 'last' 
 should be omitted. Life is crowded with 'fears of the 
 brave, and follies of the wise.' " 
 
 With Cowper's poems he became acquainted somewhat 
 late in life. He was with a shooting party at the seat 
 of Mr Villebois, in Norfolk, when, being driven in by 
 rain, and thoroughly wetted, he retreated to his room. It 
 happened that there was no book there but a volume of 
 Cowper's poems. He read them for hours, and ever after- 
 wards took the greatest delight in them. For more modern 
 poetry he had less taste, but to that of Sir Walter Scott he 
 would listen again and again with the keenest enjoyment. 
 When tea was finished, he usually walked into his study, 
 and returned after a time with any letters or papers con- 
 nected with his undertakings, that he might have received 
 or wTitten in the course of the day, and the reading of these, 
 with the discussions upon them, which he encouraged, 
 usually occupied the remainder of the evening. In all mis- 
 sionary enterprises he took the liveliest interest, listening 
 ■with avidity to intelligence of their progress. Many private 
 communications of this nature were also made to him ; 
 especially from Africa and the West Indies. He annually 
 made himself complete master of the affairs and proceedings 
 of the Bible Society, his fidelity to which never wavered. 
 "I am ready to confess," he once wrote, "that there is no 
 cause, not even emancipation itself, to which I would more 
 readily give a helping hand than to the Bible Society." 
 And some mention ought also to be made of the part he 
 took in the establishment of the London City Mission. He 
 was not alarmed, as so many were at that time, by the 
 novelty and boldness of the experiment ; its catholic char- 
 acter was completely to his taste, and it always received 
 his generous support. 
 
 His family were early trained to take an interest in his 
 pursuits, and to share in his hopes and fears ; he encou- 
 raged the remarks and the criticisms even of its younger 
 members, and would accept from them the most trivial 
 assistance. Indeed, he seemed to have a strong feeling of
 
 178 HIS DOMESTIC CHARACTER. [MioO. 
 
 personal gratitude to any one wlio would share his solici- 
 tude for the welfare of his black clients. " From the time 
 that I became closely connected with him," writes Mr John- 
 ston, " I saw how much of his time and mind were given 
 to his great objects, in his domestic circle, as well as in his 
 study. He had a happy art of imbuing all those around 
 him with his own feehngs, and of inducing them to give 
 him their most strenuous aid. He was, indeed, a delightful 
 chief to work for, so stimulating, yet so indulgent, and so 
 ready to repay, with lavish liberality, every effort, however 
 trifling, made on behalf of those to whom he was devoting 
 not labour only, but life itself. . . . His generosity, in fact, 
 was unbounded — he seemed to watch for opportunities of 
 heaping kindness upon those he loved." 
 
 The extreme tenderness of his feelings was especially 
 shewn if any of them were in sickness or distress ; or when 
 he received them again under his roof after any lengthened 
 absence. " Never, I think," observed one, " was such a 
 welcome seen on any human face." His papers bear witness 
 to his ceaseless prayers for the members of his family ; they 
 are individually mentioned, on every occasion, with discri- 
 minating afiection, and strikmg, indeed, was the solemnity 
 and the fervour with which he poured out his supplications. 
 
 As a parent he was remarkably indidgent : a trivial in- 
 stance maybe quoted from one of his letters to Mrs Buxton : — 
 
 " I write now about the coursing to-morrow. As did not 
 
 behave well and kindly, you were quite right in deciding to deprive 
 him of the si>ort to-morrow ; but, as it is so very great a pleasure to 
 think of him as happy and enjoying himself, I hope you will for 
 this time excuse him, and that he will make a point of repaying the 
 indulgence by very good behaviour. Thus we shall think of him as 
 happy and good too." * 
 
 Nothing was more remarkable than the activity of his 
 kindness in small things : the pains he would take to give 
 ]»leasurc. In the midst of his business he would lielp liis 
 cliildren to find their lost playtliings, or go out himself to 
 buy wliat they niiglit want ; nor did they fear to interrupt 
 his studies with the Tuost trilling requests. At the time of 
 his hardest work in London, he would often, on his way to 
 tlie House, buy i)ictures, and conceal them in his waste- 
 
 ♦ In ordor that this lottor iriiKht bo in time for tho coursing, ho sent a man 
 over with it from Norwich, a iliataimo of twenty-four milus.
 
 1836.] CONDUCT AS A FATHER. 179 
 
 paper basket, to enjoy the glee of liis younger cliildren, and 
 their daily renewed astonishment at discovering them there 
 in the morning. 
 
 His manner to them, as they grew older, is shewn in the 
 following casual mention of it in a letter from one of his 
 sons, then a mere boy : — 
 
 " I cannot help being struck with the exquisite tenderness of heart 
 which my father always displays ; his unwillingness to debar us from 
 pleasure, the zeal with which he will make any sacrifice, or take any 
 trouble to gratify us, is most surprising. One little example to-day 
 will describe his whole conduct. He, being really unwell, was lying 
 nearly asleep on the sofa, and observing me ufion another, with my 
 feet hanging over the side, he quietly got up, placed a chair under 
 them, and then lay down again. His whole appearance, with his 
 worn and thoughtful face, is so much that of a man whom one would 
 approach with some sensation of awe, that these small, though ex- 
 quisite, acts of tenderness are the more unexpected, and, conse- 
 quently, the more pleasing." 
 
 He occasionally, but very rarely, gave direct admonitions. 
 The following letter was addressed to one of his sons on 
 entering Trinity College, Cambridge : — 
 
 " It is always a disappointment to me to be absent when my boys 
 are at home ; but I particularly regretted being away last week, as 
 I think I might have done something for your shooting before you 
 went to College. I need not, I hope, tell you of the extreme inte- 
 rest I take in the launch of your little skiff on the ocean of life, and 
 how heartily I desire that ' soft airs and gentle heavings of the wave ' 
 may accompany your voyage ; and that you may be safely piloted 
 into the serene and lovely harbour prepared by the love of God. It 
 is not often that I trouble my children with advice ; and never, I 
 believe, unless I have something particular to say. At the present 
 time, I think I have that to say which is deeply important to your 
 success in the business of life ; nay, its effects may extend beyond 
 the grave. You are now a man, and I am persuaded that you must 
 be prepared to hold a very inferior station in life to that which you 
 might fill, unless you resolve, with God's help, that whatever you 
 do you will do it u'ell ; unless you make up your mind that it is 
 better to accomplish perfectly a very small amount of work than to 
 half-do ten times as much. What you do know, know thoroughly. 
 There are few instances in modern times of a rise equal to that of 
 Sir Edward Sugden. After one of the "Weymouth elections, I was 
 shut up with him in a carriage for twenty-four hours. I ventured 
 to ask him what was the secret of his success ; his answer was, ' I 
 resolved, when beginning to read law, to make every thing I acquired 
 perfectly my own, and never to go to a second thing till I had entirely 
 accomplished the first. Many of my competitors read as much in a 
 day as I read in a week ; but, at the end of twelve months, my know-
 
 ISO LETTER TO ONE OF HIS SONS. [JEt. 50. 
 
 ledge was as fresh as on tlie day it was acquired, while theirs had 
 glided away from their recollection.' 
 
 " Let the same mascuhne determination to act to some purpose 
 go through your hfe. Do the day's work to-day. At college I was 
 extremely intimate with two young men, both of extraordinary 
 talents. The one was always ahead of his tutor ; he was doing this 
 year the work of next year, and although, upon many parts of the 
 subject, he knew more than his examiner, yet he contrived to answer 
 what was actually proposed to him most scandalously ; — while the 
 other, by knowing perfectly what it was his business to know 
 (though not confining himself to that), never, to the best of my 
 recollection, failed to answer any question that was put to him. 
 
 " Again, be punctual. I do not mean the merely being in time 
 for lectures, &c. ; but I mean that spirit, out of which pimctuality 
 grows, that love of accuracy, precision, and vigour, which makes the 
 efficient man ; the determination, that what you have to do, shall be 
 done, in spite of all petty obstacles, and finished ofi", at once, and 
 finally. I believe I have told you the story of Nelson and his coach- 
 maker, but you must hear it once more. When he was on the eve 
 of departure for one of his great expeditions, the coachmaker said 
 to him, ' The carriage shall be at the door punctually at six o'clock.' 
 * A quarter before,' said Nelson, ' I have always been a quarter of an 
 hour before my time, and it has made a man of me.' 
 
 " How often have I seen persons who would have done well, if 
 they would but have acted up to their own sense of duty ! Thank- 
 ful I am to believe that conscience is the established ruler over your 
 actions ; but I want to enlarge its province, and to make it conde- 
 scend to these, which may appear to you minor matters, Have a 
 conscience to be fitting yourself for life, in whatever you do, and in 
 the management of your mind and powers. In Scripture phrase, 
 ' Gird up the loins of your mind.' Sheridan was an example of the 
 want of this quality. In early life, he got into a grand quarrel and 
 duel, the circumstances of which were to his credit (always except- 
 ing the fighting the duel), but they were misrepresented : he came 
 to town, resolved to set the British public right, and as Perry, the 
 editor of the Morning Clironicle, was his friend, he resolved to do 
 so, through the channel of that paper. It was agreed between thetn 
 that Sheridan, under a fictitious name, should write a history of the 
 affair, as it had been misrepresented, and that he should subsequently 
 ri-jily to it in his own name, giving the facts of the case. The first 
 part he accomplished, and there api)eared in the Chronicle a bitter 
 article against him, written, in fact, by himself; but he could never 
 find time to write the answer, and it never was written : ' The sloth- 
 ful man ro:usteth not that which he took in hunting.' 
 
 " All the men who have done things well in life, have been re- 
 markable for <l(!ci.'-:i<in of character. Tacitus describes Julius Ctcsnr 
 as 'iiinnHlruni incrcililiilc! celeiitatis attpie audaci;o;' and Bonai)arte, 
 having publinhud to all the world the day on which lie should leave 
 I'liria U> meet Wclliiigtou at Waterloo, did actually start on that 
 day ; but lie haxl h(j arranged matters, and travelled with Buch eipe- 
 dition, that he took the British army by sur^iriso.
 
 1836.] LETTER TO ONE OF HIS SONS. 181 
 
 " The punctuality which I desire for you involves and compre- 
 hends the exact arrangement of your time. It is a matter on wliich 
 much depends ; fix how much time you will spend upon each object, 
 and adhere, all but obstinately, to your plan. ' Method,' says Cecil, 
 ' is like packing things in a box ; a good packer will get in haK as 
 much again as a bad one.' My letter, I see, is swelling into a sermon, 
 but the day is fine, and Larry is waiting, so I must bring it to a 
 close. Ponder well what I have said, and call on God to help you 
 in arraying yourself in the quaUties which I desire. If you mean to be 
 the efi"ective man, you must set about it earnestly, and at once. No 
 man ever yet ' ya\vned it into being with a wish ; ' you must make 
 arrangements for it ; you must watch it ; you must notice when you 
 fail, and you must keep some kind of journal of your failures. 
 
 " But, whatever negligence may creep into your studies, or into 
 your pursuits of pleasure or of business, let there be one point, at least, 
 on which you are always watchful, always alive ; I mean in the per- 
 formance of your religious duties. Let nothing induce you, even 
 for a day, to neglect the perusal of Scripture. You know the value 
 of prayer ; it is precious beyond all price. Never, never neglect it. 
 
 " Well, my dear boy, or man if you please, if I have been some- 
 what hard upon you in parts of this letter, you must excuse me, 
 remembering that few have a father so deeply and tenderly attached 
 as you have ; or one, in general, more blind to defects, or more keen- 
 eyed in the discernment of excellences. — Your most affectionate 
 friend and father, T. Fowell Buxton." 
 
 A few of Mr Buxton's parliamentary reminiscences, as 
 taken down by one of his friends, may be worth, inserting ; — 
 
 Me. Buxton. — "I was several years in Parliament with Lord 
 Castlereagh. He had some excellent qualities for a leader, and some 
 very much the reverse. Hia temper was admirable, but then in 
 speaking he was strangely obscure, and sometimes made the most 
 queer blunders, so that occasionally, in the midst of a pathetic speech, 
 he would say something which would make the whole House burst out 
 laughing. 
 
 " Huskisson gave me a melancholy account of Castlereagh's last 
 days. He had taken up the idea that none of his colleagues would 
 speak to him. It made him miserable, and nothing could drive it 
 from his mini At length he was obliged to give a Cabinet dinner, 
 but he was confident that none of the ministers would come, and 
 most unhappy the idea made him. Huskisson was the first to arrive, 
 and he was received with such extravagant warmth and cordiality, 
 as was quite incomprehensible to him. The rest came, and every- 
 thing went on smoothly, till at last he counted them and said, ' There 
 is one too few — Palmerston is not here : the others are all my private 
 friends, but you see Palmerston won't come.' His gloom instantly re- 
 turned, and he did not speak again the whole evening. A day or two 
 after he put an end to his life. Clerk says that no man would shoot 
 himself if he took two doses of physic beforehand ; and probably if 
 poor Castlereagh had consulted a doctor, he might have been alive now. 
 
 "Nothing was ever so delightful as to hear Canning make a fine,
 
 182 ANECDOTES. [^t. 50. 
 
 rich, poetical speech, and then Tierney pull it to pieces. But Tiemey 
 has no name, wonderful as he was. That is because he never did 
 anything ; but to be sure his talents were surpassing. He had the 
 moat delicate wit : everybody we hear now is coarse, blunt, and 
 gross, compared to him. The House was extremely fond of him ; 
 let him rise when he would, it would listen to him with eagerness. 
 He deserted his party, and joined Lord Sidmouth's government at 
 last. It was, however, inscribed on his tomb, or proposed to be so, 
 ' He lived without an office, and died without a debt.' 
 
 *' Canning could be extremely entertaiuing too, but his speeches 
 were evidently prepared and polished. He was the first man I ever 
 heard speak in the House, and I remember asking my neighbour 
 who it was. There was, also, when I first went into Parliament, 
 another man of remarkable talents — Mr Ward, afterwards Lord 
 Dudley and Ward. He, too, finished his speeches down to the 
 minutest comma, and he only made one or two in a year. 
 
 " The first time I heard Chalmers was. in a chapel on the other 
 side of the river. It was so crowded that Canning and Wilberf orce had 
 to climb in at the window. Seven years after I hard Canning make 
 that sermon the substance of a speech on the Catholic question. 
 
 " A certain member of Parliament changed his opinions rather 
 rapidly after losing a place in the Government. Whereupon my 
 
 friend S quoted Lord Bacon's words, 'The two great alterants of 
 
 human opinion are time and i:)lace. Now,' said he, ' in this case time 
 there has been none, so . . . ,' but the remainder of the sentence 
 was drowned in the laughter and applause of the House. 
 
 " Sir Robert Peel's Currency Act enormously increased the na- 
 tional debt. It certainly was one of the boldest measures that have 
 been done in our time, but probably the author of it scarcely fore- 
 saw the whole result. But it was perhaps an act of justice. When 
 Attwood opposed it, Mr Grote said he was like the unjust steward 
 in the parable : ' How much owest thou ? An hundred measm'es of 
 oil — then take thy bill, sit down quickly, and write fifty.' 
 
 " When Peel's Currency Bill was passing, Hudson Gurney moved 
 an amendment, in which six members only supported him ; of whom 
 I was one, and Mr Wodchouse another. Three daj's afterwards, 
 however, the ministers, who had reconsidered the question, came 
 d(jwn to the House, and carried that very amendment by a large 
 majority. So we received the title of ' the seven wise men.' 
 
 " 1 lately dined in company with Sir James Scarlet. I asked him 
 what was the secret of his pre-eminent success as an advocate. He 
 replied, that he took care to press home the one principal point of 
 the case, without paying much regard to the others. He also said 
 that he knew the secret of being short. I find, said he, that when I 
 (r.xueud half an hour, I am always doing mischief to my client; if I 
 drive into the heads of the jury important matter, I drive out mat- 
 tor more important, which 1 liad previoiusly lodged there." 
 
 One event of the year 183G had been the marriage of Mr 
 Buxton's eldest son to Catherine, second daughter of Samuel 
 Gurnoy, E.sq., of llani Ifouse, Essex.
 
 1836.] LETTER FROM BELLFIELD. 183 
 
 Soon afterwards, he writes to Mrs Buxton, from Bellfield : — 
 
 " It is now five o'clock ; we dine at half-past ; the interval, my 
 dearest wife, is reserved for you. I have much enjoyed being here; 
 I went off from London very comfortably, having the coach to my- 
 self almost the whole way. I slept the first stage and the last, so I 
 had from seven in the morning till seven at night, to read and re- 
 flect ; and I was very happy, and I feel Tery strongly, perhaps never 
 BO strongly, that mercy and goodness have followed me all the days 
 of my life. Others may deny that there is a special Providence, but 
 it is too barefaced a lie for me. What kept me from the Brewery 
 at fourteen, sent me to college, and made me avail myself of its ad- 
 vantages ? What led me to Earlham ? . . . . What placed me in so 
 prosperous a business, without which I never could have thought of 
 public Hfe ? What placed me under Pratt's ministry, where my eyes 
 were first opened to real truth ; and what sent severe illness to con- 
 firm and ripen the impression made at Wheeler Chapel ? What 
 placed me in Parliament, and kept me there for neai-ly twenty years, 
 in spite of almost desperate probabilities against me ? What made 
 my mother sow the seeds of abhorrence of slavery in my mind ; and 
 dear Priscilla exhort me to undertake the subject, when she was 
 dying, and Wilberforce commit it to me, when he became unable to 
 continue the task ? I could go on till the dinner-bell to-morrow 
 evening, recounting the instances in which I have seen the finger of 
 a blessed and divine Providence. 
 
 " I looked yesterday and to-day, in walking through this serene 
 place, at the present posture of our affairs, and I could see only 
 
 cheering prospects and causes of deep thankfulness But in 
 
 none have I had a greater sense of comfort and of God's mercy than 
 in one who, though not here to cheer us, is in the regions of perfect 
 bliss. I can contemplate his state, and the dealings of Providence 
 Vv'ith us, as concerns him, and be very thankful, and very sure, in 
 feeling as well as in reason, that all is right." 
 
 In his often repeated visits to Bellfield, he shewed him- 
 self in quite a new character. His uncle, who was very 
 fond of him, and towards whom he felt like a son, treated 
 him, to the last, as quite a young man, and it was amusing 
 to observe the happy mixture of deference and decision, 
 playfulness and respect, with which his uncle's continual 
 admonitions, especially with regard to his health, were re- 
 ceived by one who was generally somewhat impatient of the 
 micalled-for interference of others. 
 
 From his numerous letters to his uncle, the following 
 may be given : — 
 
 TO CHARLES BUXTON, ESQ., AT BELLFIELD. 
 
 " NoKTHREPPS Hall, December 31, 
 Eleven o'clock at night. 
 " Mt Deab Uncle, — In the first place, as the old year is just go- 
 
 O
 
 184 DEATH OF HIS SISTER-IN-LAW. [^t. 50. 
 
 ing, I must wish that the new one may be a really happy one to 
 you and my aunt. I hope that you both will pass through it in 
 health and comfort. No nephew had ever more reason for this sin- 
 cere wish than myself, and few nephews have so truly desired it. 
 The termination of one year and the beginning of another is always 
 a time of much reflection with me. I look back to the past year, 
 and see innumerable errors and sins ; and forward to the coming 
 year, and consider that, before it terminates, I may be called to judg- 
 ment. Eternity is at hand with us all. Happy they, and only they, 
 who know that they have no merit which can save them, who look 
 for mercy only through Christ, who repent of past sins, desire to do 
 God's will while on earth, and believe on Christ, that He can and 
 will save those who obey Him, and trust in Him. I know you are 
 never offended by my talking on such subjects, and they naturally 
 spring up in my mind just as a new year is coming." 
 
 The thoughts expressed in this letter were brought 
 strongly home to him but a short time afterwards, by the 
 sudden death of his sister-in-law, Lady Harriet Gurney, for 
 whom he entertained the warmest affection. On the day of 
 her funeral he wrote home : — " In seeing her coffin com- 
 mitted to the vault, I could not but feel, that it contained 
 all that remained of as much beauty and true loveliness of 
 mind, body, and spirit as we ever saw removed from this 
 world." 
 
 As usual, the year was closed by him with an enumera- 
 tion of the mercies received during its course. To his list 
 of domestic blessings, he now adds his little grandson, who, 
 he says, " is a source of delight and infinite amusement." 
 
 He proceeds : — 
 
 " The accounts from the West Indies of the conduct of our negroes 
 is gratifying in the last degree; so that that subject, which, for 
 eleven years, was a source of daily disquietude, is now the refresh- 
 ment and solace to which I continually turn. The history of the 
 past year is of favours heaped upon me and mine, on the right hand 
 and on the left." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 1837, 1838. 
 
 In the course of the year 1834, Mr Buxton had investigated 
 the questir)n of tlie treatment of the native tribes in our va- 
 rious colonics, and had moved for a committee to inquire fully 
 into the suliject. This committee sat for three sessions, 
 and obtained a vast amount of valuable information, and the 
 drawing up of its rcjiort was intrusted to Mr Buxton as its
 
 1836.] ABORIGINES' REPORT. 185 
 
 cliairman. He was anxious to render this report a sort of 
 manual for the future treatment of aboriginal nations, in 
 connexion with our colonies. Its object was to prove, first, 
 the destructive cruelty to which the native tribes had gene- 
 rally been subjected : and, secondly, that wherever they had 
 received equitable and humane treatment, they had increased 
 in numbers, acquired the arts of civUized Hfe, and accepted 
 the blessings of religion. 
 
 During this session, he was chiefly occupied in com- 
 pleting and carrying this report through the committee. 
 Before it was printed, it was carefully revised by Sir George 
 Grey, and it appears to have had considerable weight with 
 the Government in promoting the equitable treatment of 
 the natives in our colonial dominions. 
 
 It was with peculiar satisfaction that he saw this work 
 completed ; for it was very doubtful whether he would long 
 have the opportunity of continuing his exertions in the 
 House of Commons. The death of the King, on the 20th 
 of June, produced an immediate dissolution of Parliament, 
 and Mr Buxton's return for Weymouth had never before 
 appeared so insecure. 
 
 to charles buxton, esq., bellpield. 
 
 " Spitalfields, 1837. 
 
 "My Dear Uncle, — You must not be alarmed about the election. 
 .... I really think I should not be happy, or feel that I had done 
 my duty, if I were to retire. I think (though, perhaps, it is absurd 
 vanity to say so,) that my being in Parliament is of some little conse- 
 quence to the negroes in the West Indies; to the oppressed natives of 
 our colonies ; and to the inhabitants of Africa exposed to the slave 
 trade. As the first are nearly one million, the second three miUions, 
 and the third a great many millions, it would not be right to give up a 
 chance, if it were only a chance, of being returned, merely because 
 there may be some little humiliation to myself in being turned out. 
 
 " I don't care a straw about the disgrace. If I am turned out, I 
 cau't help it : I have done my best, and shall be satisfied. But if 
 I were to go out of my own accord, I think my conscience would 
 reproach me. Besides aU which, I do not think they can turn me out 
 quite so easily as they imagine." 
 
 The following letter was addressed to Mr Joseph John 
 Gurney, who was about to proceed to America, on a reli- 
 gious visit to the Society of Friends : — 
 
 " Ham House, June 25, 1837. 
 " I think it i^ hardly possible for any one, at least of our harder 
 sex, to feel more thau I do, in all that concerns your going to
 
 186 CORRESPONDENCE. [JEt. 51. 
 
 America. "We have been bound together for not far short of forty 
 years in one cloudless friendship. As boy and man, I have been 
 partner in all your fortunes, and you in mine. I do not believe you 
 ever, by word or deed, gave me a momentary vexation. You, I 
 dare say, are not aware how you have refreshed and encouraged me 
 in my career ; in truth, I look to you with almost boundless affec- 
 tion and gratitude. It is against the grain with me to let you go 
 without seeing you again, but I fear it must be so. After much 
 deliberation, I have resolved to go down to Weymouth. The way in 
 which Parliament affects my health has had great weight in the one 
 scale, but, in the other, there are three gi'eat points — West India 
 negi-oes. East India slavery, and the Brazilian slave trade. If it 
 w-ere the West India negroes alone, I believe I should retire, be- 
 cause nine-tenths of the work is done, and because there is feeUng 
 enough in the country to accomplish the remainder, and persons 
 enough willing and able to call forth that feeling. I am steadfast 
 in the belief, that that great experiment has been, and will continue 
 to be crowned with more complete success than the most sanguine 
 among us anticipated. I know very well that evil influences are 
 working hard against it, and that thousands of the negroes are ex- 
 posed to cruel injustice. Nevertheless I do rejoice, and will re- 
 joice in the extinction of slavery; and the more I see of the post- 
 humous brood, the more I rejoice in the death of the old parent 
 dragon. 
 
 " And now, my dear brother, if I do not see you before your de- 
 parture, I take leave of you with a heart full of lov^e, with the most 
 pleasant and grateful remembrance of you, and with the most ear- 
 nest prayers for your safety, comfort, and peace, for the full success 
 of your mission, and for your fruition of all that is contained in these 
 words, ' Fear thou not, for I am with thee ; be not dismayed, for I 
 am thy God. I will strengthen thee, yea, I will help thee, yea, I 
 will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.' " 
 
 On the day that the Queen dissolved Parliament, he 
 ■WTitos to Mrs S. Gurney, whose aged mother he had visited 
 on the previous day : — 
 
 "July 17, 1837. 
 " I this day saw our youthful Queen surrovnided by all the chief 
 officers of state, herself wearing a crown of diamonds, and arrayed 
 in royal robes, and the House of Lords filled with all the great ones 
 of thf country. She delivered an admirable address to the Parlia- 
 ment, with the utmost sweetness of voice and the most exquisite 
 grace of manner ; and yet this spectacle has left a less pleasing, a 
 IcHH lively impression on my mind than the sight which I had yes- 
 terday the pleasure of witnessing, — of an aged Christian, refined 
 and purified, her work completed, waiting in patient cheerfulness 
 tlie will of her Lord. That is a sight full of instruction and conso- 
 lation. So much nnist I say, my dear sister, and you may repeat it 
 to her who is ready to depart and to be with Christ." 
 
 In July, he went down to the election at Weymouth.
 
 1837.] DEFEAT AT WEYMOUTH. 187 
 
 TO MKS BUXTON. 
 
 "Bellfield, July 25, 1837. 
 
 " Here I am looking out on this splendid view ; nothing can be 
 more calm. I have passed a restless night, and have been awake for 
 hours. 
 
 " This day will, I expect, make an entire revolution in my voca- 
 tion. I have no expectation of being returned. When I look at 
 some of the arts that have been employed, I am haK ready to be 
 provoked ; but when I turn to the Creator of these fields, and those 
 waters, and remember that all events are in His hands, that nothing 
 occurs but at His bidding, I am restored to full peace. He ordereth 
 all events, and that is reason enough for satisfaction ; and though, 
 for the moment, we are carried away by the current, it is not very 
 difficult to perceive that we shall derive a hundred family benefits 
 from my exclusion from Parliament. I look upon myself as an old 
 horse turned out to grass, and it is folly to worry myself by sup- 
 posing that other and better steeds will not be found to do the 
 work. 
 
 " I must now get ready. I do not expect to be in any way dis- 
 turbed by the events of the day ; but before it closes I shall be a 
 man of leisure; that is no mean blessing: a man, not slaving himself 
 to death, but with time to walk, to read, to sleep, to reflect — and 
 better than these, time to pray. 
 
 " One o'clock. Well, my dearest wife, your wishes are realised ; 
 the troubles and worries of Parliament are over with me ; and now 
 we must be as happy, as healthy, and as long-lived as possible. I am 
 perfectly well satisfied with the result, and view it as a release from 
 a vast deal of labour." 
 
 That the cause of this defeat was not any diminution of 
 personal attachment to him on the part of his constituents, 
 was evident from the strong expressions of grief on all 
 sides at his rejection. But the Tory party had for some 
 years been increasing in local influence, and did not scruple 
 to employ a degree of intimidation till then unknown in the 
 borough. In Mr Buxton's farewell address to the electors 
 he distinctly states : — 
 
 " During twenty years in elections, seven of which have been 
 severely contested, I have had the opportunity of ascertaining the 
 motives which actuate almost every individual in this borough, and 
 I gladly state this fact, so honourable to the poorer electors of this 
 town, viz., that I never paid any man one sixpence for his vote, and 
 never, except in two instances, was asked to do so." 
 
 TO JOSEPH JOHN GURNET, ESQ., IN AMERICA. 
 
 " Upton, Jul)/ 30, 1837. 
 
 " Before I went down to Weymouth, I began to fear ; for one of my 
 
 supporters told me that if I wished to secure the election, it would 
 
 be necessary to open public houses and to lend money (a gentle 
 
 name for bribery) to the extent of £1000. I of course declined. It
 
 188 TESTIMONIAL TO MR BUXTON. [^t. 51. 
 
 might or it might not be my duty to get into Parliament, but it 
 could not be my duty to corrupt the electors by beer and bank-notes. 
 
 " At the close of the poll I went with Edward to the booth, where 
 my opponents and their friends were collected, shook hands with 
 them, wished them joy, walked about the town for half-anhour 
 with Barlow and Edward to cheer up my friends, who were sadly 
 out of spirits, and then went to Bellfield, where we passed a very 
 cheerful evening ; and up to this moment, not one shade of regret 
 on my own account, however slight, however transient, has passed 
 over my mind, at the memory of my departed honours. 
 
 " The next morning, about eighty of my constituents came up. I 
 ran to the balcony, and began a cheerful speech ; but I soon found 
 I was entirely out of tune. I went down amongst them, and then 
 made them an oration. It could not help being a feeling one ; cer- 
 tainly I never saw a greater appearance of regret I have not 
 
 half described the manifestation of feeling which took place in the 
 town. The children set themselves to work to collect subscriptions 
 to give me a piece of plate. The men are also doing the same 
 thing on their part. The very Tories, they say, are disconsolate ! 
 In the evening, several of the working men who had not joined the 
 procession in the morning, came up to bid me farewell ; and at six 
 o'clock the next morning, when I got into the coach, there was an 
 assemblage of them looking sadly downcast. Spite of all this lamen- 
 tation, I have been in great glee the whole time. I am right glad 
 that I stood — right glad that I have got a holiday. My own impres- 
 sion is, that I could not have stood the fatigues of ParUament many 
 sessions more ; and perhaps this turning out to grass may, in the 
 long rim, enable me to do more work, if I should have the privilege 
 
 of being called to it. I saw , who said more about the regret 
 
 of Government, than I should like to repeat. On the other hand, 
 Dr Holland has sent me a message by Samuel Hoare, of warm con- 
 gratulation. 
 
 " I had fully resolved, had I continued in Parliament, to have 
 sent you a kind of journal of notable events ; but in my present 
 non-effective condition, I am not likely to have anything more inte- 
 resting to tell you, than the history of the pigs and poultry at North- 
 repps. As I leave Parliament for health, I do not by any means 
 intend to defeat that end by dedicating myself to any other objects. 
 I mean, for conscience' sake, to ride, slioot, amuse myself, and grow 
 fat and flourishing." 
 
 From no less than twenty-seven different places were 
 ])roposal3 made to Mr Buxton to stand as a candidate ; 
 but he felt at liberty to take advantage of the opportune 
 repose afforded him, and accordingly declined tlieni all. 
 
 TO CHARLES BUXTON, ESQ., AT BELLFIELD. 
 
 " Octohcr, 1837. 
 " I take shooting very easy this year, having always a shooting, 
 jpony with me ; he ia a wonder, has as good action as your old leader, 
 and is aa handaome ; aa quiet as a lamb, and strong enough to carry
 
 1837,1838.] NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 18D 
 
 and sometimes does carry, Mr Hoare and myself together, eats bread 
 and cheese, drinks beer, is a particularly good judge of porter, and 
 prefers ours." 
 
 TO EDWARD N. BUXTON, ESQ. 
 
 "November, 1837. 
 
 " I have again made an alteration in my gun-stock, contrary to 
 your advice. I have shot execrably all the year, and could stand it 
 no longer, so I employed a Holt carpenter to hew me a stock, accord- 
 ing to my own fancy, out of the trunk of a tree. It is in its primi- 
 tive simplicity, and is so wide as to ' contrive the double debt to 
 pay,' of stock while shooting, and table at luncheon ; but rough and 
 awkward as it is, I shall, I trust, take the conceit out of the young 
 men with it. 
 
 " I have been calculating that since Parliament closed I have rid- 
 den 500 miles, and walked 1500. 
 
 ' Better to hunt in fields for health unbought, 
 Tlian fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. 
 The wise, for cure, on exercise depend.' 
 
 " So sings Dryden, and what he preached I practise. 
 
 " I shall send you a basket to-night, as proof that my log of a gun- 
 stock can do execution. . . . We are very happy here. If you catch 
 the iniiuenza, lie up at once — principiis ohsta." 
 
 » At the end of 1837, a work was published by Messrs 
 Sturge and Scoble, who had visited the West Indies, de- 
 scribing the condition of the negro apprentices, and such 
 general indignation was excited by their narrative, that 
 from all parts of the country were delegates sent to London, 
 in the beginning of 1838, to urge the discontinuance of the 
 apprenticeship system. Mr Buxton, for some time, refused 
 to join them, which excited great displeasure among some 
 of his old friends. 
 
 On the 23d of March he received a letter from Dr Lush- 
 ington, urging him to come to town and meet the delegates, 
 and he accordingly left Northrepps for London, and after 
 much deliberation he determined to join them. 
 
 " I went," he says, " to the meeting of the delegates ; they were 
 very cordial. I told them freely my mind, and some of it was not 
 much to their liking, I dare say. Among the rest that I praised 
 Glenelg." 
 
 On the 30th of March Sir George Strickland brought 
 forward a motion for the abolition of the apprenticeship, 
 but it was lost by a majority of 64. Mr Buxton thus 
 describes the evening, having been present under the 
 gallery : — 
 
 " London, March 31, 1838. 
 
 " I am alive, after having been in the detestable position of having
 
 190 SIR GEORGE STRICKLAND'S MOTION. [JEt. 52. 
 
 to sit for ten hours, last night, in the House of Commons, to be shot 
 at by everybody, without the possibility of firing one round in re- 
 turn. I would have given something to be allowed to speak, and I 
 literally was two or three times upon the point of springing up. 
 Gladstone, Lord John RusseU, Grey, &c., would have it that I was 
 a friend to the apprenticeship, because I sold an unavailing divi- 
 sion on it, in committee, for the sohd profit of getting them to in- 
 sert a clause for unqualified freedom, when the apprenticeship should 
 cease." 
 
 In consequence of what had been stated in this debate, 
 Mr Buxton addressed a letter to Lord John Russell, in 
 which he proved that he had been throughout a steady 
 opponent of the apprenticeship system. 
 
 He went about the same time to see Mr Macaulay, whom he 
 found very iU. '■ God bless you and yours," said his aged 
 friend, " I sympathise in aU your trials, I concur in all your 
 opinions, and your visits to me are as water to the thirsty 
 soul." He died soon after, just before the complete consum- 
 mation of all his labours ; for in the same month. Sir Eardley 
 Wilmot gained, by a majority of three, a motion against tjje 
 apprenticeship ; and the planters afterwards agreed to sur- 
 render it on the 1st of August 1838. "The apprentice- 
 ship is abolished," writes Mr Buxton ; "thank God for that." 
 
 " I bless God for the event," he says, in a letter to Mr Sturge : 
 " I bless God, that He, who has always raised up agents such as the 
 crisis required, sent you to the West Indies. I bless God, that 
 during the apprenticeship, not one act of violence against the per- 
 son of a white man has, as I believe, been perpetrated by a negro, 
 and I cannot express my grateful exultation that those whom the 
 colonial law so recently reckoned as brute beasts, ' the fee simple 
 absolute whereof resided in their owners,' will so soon be invested 
 
 with the full rights of man Let none of us forget that those 
 
 who are emancijiated wUl be assailed with many an attempt to curb 
 and crush their liberty ; nor that two millions of human chattels in 
 the East Indies require our j)rotection ; nor that the slave trade, of 
 all evils the monster evil, still defiles and darkens one quarter of the 
 globe. May that same public voice, which has now been so hapjtily 
 exert(!<l, and luidcr the influence of that same gracious Lord, who 
 ha« wrought its present victory, never be hushed while a taint of 
 slavery remains ! " 
 
 TO THE HON. MIlS UPCHER. 
 
 " ATHEN.EUM, May 23, 1838. 
 
 " I must write a lino to tell you that Sturge and that party whom 
 
 we thought all in the wrong, are proved to be all in the right. A 
 
 rcHoliition for the immediate abolition of the apprenticeship was 
 
 carried by a majority vi three last night. The intelligence was re-
 
 1838.] SUPPRESSION OF THE SLAVE TRADE. 191 
 
 ceived with such a shout by the Quakers, (myself among the num- 
 ber,) that we strangers were all turned out for rioting ! I am right 
 pleased." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 1838. 
 
 On quitting Parliament, Mr Buxton Lad looked forward to 
 a period of repose ; but this expectation was not realised. 
 Even before that time, an idea had suggested itself to his 
 mind, the development of which proved more than suffi- 
 cient occupation for all his remaining years. 
 
 " I well remember," writes one of his sons, " the commencement 
 of that long train of toils, anxieties, and sorrows. While my father 
 and I were staying at Earlham, in the beginning of the summer of 
 1837, he walked into my room one morning, at an early hour, and 
 sitting down on my bedside, told me that he had been lying awake 
 the whole night, reflecting on the subject of the slave trade, and 
 he beheved he had hit upon the true remedy for that portentous 
 evil." 
 
 Two years before this time, he had moved an address for 
 making our treaties on this subject with foreign powers 
 more stringent, and the penalties of the crime more severe. 
 The idea that now struck him so forcibly, was this, — that 
 " though strong external measures ought still to be resorted 
 to, the deliverance of Africa was to be affected, hy calling 
 out her own resources.''^ 
 
 For some months he was compelled to defer the follow- 
 ing up of this new train of thought ; but on reaching home 
 at the fall of the year, he addressed himself to the pursuit 
 with all his heart and mind, and never was his character 
 shewn more cleai'ly than in his conduct of this great 
 affair. 
 
 His task was twofold : — on the one hand, he had to prove 
 the magnitude of the evils now existing, in the human 
 traffic, and consequent condition of Africa : — on the other, 
 he had to point out the capabilities of Africa, and thence 
 to deduce the possibility of her becoming peaceful, flourish- 
 ing, and productive, by the force of legitimate commerce. 
 
 While he himself was occupied in elaborate calculations 
 drawn from official documents, respecting the extent and 
 desolating effect of the trade, he set others to work in col-
 
 102 SUPPRESSION OF THE SLAVE TRADE. [JEi. 52. 
 
 lecting proofs of the productiveness and commercial le- 
 sources of Africa. 
 
 TO EDWARD N. BUXTON, ESQ. 
 
 "NoRTHEEPPS Hall, 1838. 
 " Andrew Jolinston and I are working like dragons at the slave 
 trade — a task as interesting in its prosecution, and promising to be 
 as important in its results, as any that I ever had the honour to be 
 engaged in. I only wish that the number of the hours in each day 
 were doubled, and the number of minutes in every hour quadrupled." 
 
 Having come to London prepared witli all his statistical 
 details, he spent the spring, assisted by Mr Johnston, in 
 verifying them by evidence of first-rate authority, both naval 
 and mercantile. When he had done this, he laid an epitome 
 of his plans before different members of the Cabinet ; by 
 several of whom a disposition was evinced to investigate 
 the subject further, and he was requested to prepare his 
 views in a more developed form by the beginning of the re- 
 cess. Accordingly, at the end of May, he went to Lea- 
 mington, where he was joined by Mr Scoble, an able and 
 hearty fellow-labourer ; and by Mr M'Queen, who was in- 
 timately acquainted with the geography and productions of 
 Africa, and who had some years before declared his convic- 
 tion, that the true way to abolish the slave trade would be 
 to supplant it by lawful commerce. Aided by these gentle- 
 men, he devoted himself sedulously to the task, frequently 
 working at it about twelve hours a day. 
 
 This " Letter to Lord Melbourne " was intended exclu- 
 sively for the members of the Government, and, according- 
 ly, but twenty copies Avere printed. 
 
 TO nia SISTEB, MISS S. M. BDXTON, NORTHEEPPS COTTAGE. 
 
 "August 14. 
 " Now I must tell you a little about my adventures. Yesterday 
 I saw almost all the ministers, and almost all their secretaries ; and 
 held the same language with them all. I have put my views in 
 print, in order to tempt you to road them. While Parliament is 
 sitting I expect nothing of you, but, promise mo this, that as soon 
 as the recess begins, you will read my book before you take up any 
 other subject. Give me an unoipiivocal yes or no ; and, if you say 
 ' Yes,' act with vigour. I have got a s])ecific promise from each, 
 t!iat, without delay, they will read, consider, and decide. I saw yea- 
 tonJay Lords Melbourne, Glenelg, Palmerston, and Howick; Hob- 
 liouHi), Spring llicc. Grey, Stanley, Wood, Porter, Anson, Stojihen. 
 The iuHt Hcnt mi! woid that he was very busy, so our interview must 
 bo very tiliort. 1 walked into his room, put the book into his hand,
 
 1838.] ABSTRACT OF HIS VIEWS. 193 
 
 and, without saying a word, walked out again. He called out, ' What 
 does this mean ? ' ' The shortest interview you ever had with any- 
 body,' said I. ' Ah,' said he, ' the head is short enough, but there 's 
 a terrible long tail to it.' .... In short, I was remarkably well 
 pleased with my day's work. Got home near twelve o'clock. The 
 waves of the day too agitated for easy getting to sleep." 
 
 TO J. J. GURNET, ESQ. 
 
 "August 18. 
 " To begin with that which has chiefly occupied my attention for 
 many months past ; last November I started on a pilgrimage through 
 all the books and parliamentary documents connected with the slave 
 trade. I began from the very beginning, and, partly in person, still 
 more by deputy, I traversed the whole subject ; and such a scene of 
 diabolism, and such an excess of misery, as I had to survey, never, I 
 am persuaded, before fell to the lot of an unhappy investigator. 
 WiU you believe it, the slave trade, though England has relinquished 
 it, is now double what it was when Wilberforce first began ; and its 
 horrors not only aggravated by the increase of the total, but in each 
 particular case more intense than they were in 1788 ? Will you be- 
 lieve it, again, that it requires at the rate of a thousand human 
 beings per diem, in order to satisfy its enormous maw ? . . . . How 
 glad have I been to have escaped from the turmoils of Parliament, 
 and to have my mind and my time my own, that I might bestow 
 them without interruption on this vast mass of misery and crime ! " 
 
 He recommended the adoption of two preliminary mea- 
 sures ; — one, the concentration upon the coast of Africa of 
 a more efficient naval force ; the other, the formation of a 
 chain of treaties with the native chiefs of the interior. 
 These two measures were not brought forward as the remedy 
 itself, but merely as clearing the way for its operation. 
 "The real remedy, the true ransom for Africa, will be 
 found," says Mr Buxton, " in her fertile soil ; " and he drew 
 up, from a vast variety of authorities, an account of the 
 boundless resources which West Africa contains. 
 
 The following were some of the specific steps suggested 
 by him for turning the attention of the Africans from their 
 trade in men to the trade in merchandise : — That the British 
 Government should increase the efficiency of the preventive 
 squadron on the coast — should purchase Fernando Po, as a 
 kind of head-quarters and mart of commerce — should give 
 protection to private enterprises — and should enter into 
 treaty with the native chiefs for the relinquishment of the 
 slave trade, for grants of lands to be brought into cultiva- 
 tion, jcnd for arrangements to facilitate a legitimate trade. 
 
 He proposed that an expedition should be sent up the
 
 194 SPECIFIC SUGGESTIONS. [JEt. 52. 
 
 Niger for tlie purpose of setting on foot the preliminary ar- 
 rangements in Africa for the agricultural, commercial, and 
 missionary settlements ; of entering into treaties with the 
 native chiefs ; of convincing the negroes of the uprightness 
 of our intentions ; and of ascertaining the state of the coun- 
 try along that vast tract of land which is traversed by the 
 river Niger. 
 
 A company was also to be formed, by private individuals, 
 for the introduction of agriculture and commerce into Af- 
 rica. This was to be effected by sending out qualified 
 agents to form settlements in favourable situations ; to es- 
 tablish model farms ; to set up factories, well-stored with 
 British goods, and thus to sow the first seeds of commerce ; 
 and, in short, to adopt those means, which have been else- 
 where effectual, in promoting trade, and the cultivation of 
 the soil. He admitted entirely that this company must not 
 expect speedy returns, although he strongly maintained the 
 reasonable prospect of eventual profit. 
 
 Upon private individuals, also, would devolve the respon- 
 sibility of co-operating with the religious societies in sending 
 out a strong force of those upon whom he especially de- 
 pended for the deliverance of Africa, missionaries and na- 
 tive teachers. 
 
 He dwelt much upon the importance of making use of 
 native agency for this purpose. 
 
 " The climate of Africa," he writes to the Rev. Hugh Stowell, 
 "presents an obstacle to European agents being employed in the 
 work to any extent, and we must look to the natives themselves to 
 be the agents in this great enterprise. This is no new scheme, for 
 you will observe that it has been tried in various quarters of the 
 globe with considerable success, and various denominations of Chris- 
 tians are following out the plan, with zeal and perseverance, in India 
 and Africa." 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 1838, 1839. 
 
 Mr Buxton watched with great anxiety the effect that 
 might be i)r(i(hu'cd on the ministers by the statements thus 
 laboriously })rcpared. In the beginning of September he 
 was summoned to town by Lord Glenclg ; he writes thence —
 
 1838.] COMMUNICATIONS WITH GOVERNMENT. 195 
 
 TO ANDREW JOHNSTON, ESQ. 
 
 " Colonial Office, September 5, 1838. 
 
 " Lord Glenelg sent me word on Monday, that he wanted an hour's 
 conversation with me. With the ardour natm-al to authors, I con- 
 strued this into a slave-trade conference, the acquiescence of the 
 Government in my plan, and Africa almost delivered. I have now 
 been waiting till half of my hour has elapsed, so I am getting fidgety 
 and fearful that my di-eams will not be realised. However, I believe 
 that a good Providence has undertaken the management of this busi- 
 ness, and therefore I will not be troubled. 
 
 " Near five o'clock. Thank God ! I say it with all my heart, 
 thank God ! the Government, says Lord Glenelg, are deeply inte- 
 rested by my book. Melbourne writes to him strongly about it. 
 The Cabinet meet on Friday on the subject. Glenelg says they ac- 
 cede to all I have said as to previous failures. They think I have 
 greatly underrated the extent, and still more the mortality. In 
 short, he was convinced, to my heart's content. I have since seen 
 Lushington ; he is delighted with the book ; accedes to it with all 
 his heart. In short, a happy day." 
 
 " I am highly pleased," he writes home, " and very, very 
 thankful, and feel very keenly. What am I, that this mercy 
 should be heaped upon me ?" 
 
 to JOSEPH J. GURNET, ESQ. 
 
 " NoRTHREPPS Hall, Decemher 7. 
 " Within the last month, I have been to town and have had many 
 interviews with members of the Cabinet, and I find that my book 
 has made a deeper impression upon them than I had ventured to 
 hope for. They all admit that the facts are placed beyond all dis- 
 pute. They tell me, that they want no further evidence whatsoever 
 of the extent and horrors of the trade ; and they admit, in very 
 strong terms, that they are converts to the views which I have de- 
 veloped. In short, the subject now under consideration is, how they 
 shall act ? I have been embodying my views in nine propositions, 
 and have stated seriatim the steps they ought to take, and the order 
 in which they should be taken. I expect that this slave-trade ques- 
 tion will find me in employment for the rest of my days, and my 
 hope is that you and I may work together in it for many years to 
 come. I am not so sanguine as to expect that so vast a work will 
 be rapidly executed. Our favourite text is, * Not by might nor by 
 power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.' " 
 
 The Government had acceded to his theory ; it now re- 
 maiued to be seen whether they would adopt his practical 
 suggestions. He writes from London — 
 
 " I was ushered into the presence of Lord Glenelg, muttering to 
 myself, ' God, give me good speed this day !'.... I soon found 
 that my nine propositions worked admirably. They were formally 
 discussed in the Cabinet. Glenelg intimated that the ministers were 
 unanimous, and that they had resolved, with some modifications, to
 
 196 NATIVE SCHOOLMASTERS. [^t. 52. 
 
 act upon them. I was told that Lord said it was the boldest 
 
 conception that had been struck out in our days I am now 
 
 going to Upton to dinner. God grant I may hear good accounts 
 from Northrepps, and then I shall be full of gladness of heart. Is 
 not my news delightful ? 
 
 " I did not sleep well," he tells Mr Johnston ; " who could expect 
 it, after such a day ; after finding that it was intended to realise my 
 most intense desire ? I was also delighted at learning at the Colonial 
 Office, that the Kat River Hottentots, Caffres, West Indian negroes, 
 were all doing beautifully." 
 
 Tlie result of these interviews was a request on the part 
 of Government, that he should enlarge and publish his work 
 to arouse the public mind, but it was desired that the prac- 
 tical suggestions should be kept back till they had more 
 fully determined on their course. The resignation, shortly 
 afterwards, of Lord Glenelg was deeply regretted by Mr 
 Buxton. Lord Normanby, however, adopted the views of 
 Ms predecessor, and the whole Cabinet appears to have con- 
 sidered the advantage which would accrue to England, as 
 well as to Africa, from the opening of so vast a field of com- 
 mercial speculation, as sufficiently important to warrant 
 their attempting to carry them into effect. 
 
 TO THE REV. J. M. TREW. 
 
 " I am more and more impressed with the importance of normal 
 schools in the West Indies. It is not only that there will be a great 
 demand for schoolmasters, but I have a strong confidence that Africa 
 will, ere long, be opened to commerce, civilisation, and Christianity ; 
 and then there will be need, indeed, of educated and religious black 
 schoolmasters. The idea of compensation to Africa, through the 
 means of the West Indies, is a great favourite with me ; and I think 
 we shall see the day when we shall be called to pour a flood of light 
 and truth upon miserable Africa. Pray, therefore, bear in mind, 
 that we ought to do a great deal as to normal schools." 
 
 TO MISS GURNEY AND MISS BUXTON, AT NORTHREPPS COTTAGE. 
 
 " Spitalfields, June 10. 
 " My Dear Ladie.'?, — I have received j'our magnificent packet to- 
 day, and mean to read it with the party to-night. When shall I have 
 Mr Richards' commencement ? I spent yesterday at Poles, and very 
 much enjoyed myself, spending hours in the wood. ' Then are they 
 glad because they be quiet.' If we do meet at Rome this winter, we 
 ir/// enjoy ourfielves. 'We'll never do nothing whatever on earth,' 
 and if that is not pleasure, what is? I am sick of turmoiling." 
 
 Mr liuxton spent some months in the neighbourhood of 
 London ; incessantly engaged both in comiuunications with 
 the Government, and in endeavouring, with great success, 
 to excite the interest and obtain the co-operation of many
 
 1838.] CLIMATE OF AFRICA. 197 
 
 of his friends. In this as in previous undertakings he acted 
 in complete concert with Dr Lushington, with whom every 
 plan was carefully discussed, and who bore his full share of 
 the burden. 
 
 At Dr Lushington's house was held a preliminary meet- 
 ing of a few select friends, before whom ]\Ir Buxton wished 
 in the first instance to lay his views. He writes : — 
 
 " We have had a highly satisfactory meeting. I felt that I had 
 my case well up, and was troubled by no worrying doubts. Every 
 one expressed that they were perfectly satisfied upon every point. 
 Lord Ashley was very hearty indeed. 
 
 " The line I took about the climate of Africa was this : I stated 
 that my plan was to employ only a few Europeans, and to depend 
 chiefly on the people of colour. I said at once, that I gave up all 
 the mouths of the rivers, and all the swampy ground, and looked 
 only to the high ground at the foot of the Kong Mountains ; that I 
 would not pledge myself to the healthiness even of that part, but 
 that I expected that it would prove very different from the general 
 notions of African climate." 
 
 This occasion is thus referred to by the Rev. J. M. 
 Trew :— 
 
 " The first meeting (preparatory to the formation of the African 
 Civilisation Society), which was strictly private, and at which Mr 
 Buxton made known his plans for prosecuting that great work, was 
 attended by about twenty noblemen and gentlemen. I never shall 
 forget his calm and dignified composure upon that occasion. Before 
 he enunciated a syllable, he seemed to feel as if the destinies of 
 Africa were suspended upon the events of that memorable day. I 
 could not but lift up my heart in silent prayer, that the blessing of 
 the most High God might rest upon his undertaking. And sure I 
 am, that such was the frame of mind in which he ventured upon his 
 work ; so humble was he in his address, shewing such ready defer- 
 ence to his friends, such touching sympathy for the objects of his 
 solicitude, so alive to the importance of wisdom in his deliberation 
 and prudence in his plans. Meeting after meeting, private confer- 
 ences with his more immediate advisers, and public committees of 
 men of all parties in politics, and opposite opinions in religion, only 
 tended to shew how eminently calculated he was for uniting men 
 together on the great platform of benevolence. 
 
 " Nor was it only towards his superiors and equals in rank and 
 station that this truly Christian spirit was evinced. All who laboured 
 with him, from the highest to the lowest, could not fail to love him. 
 How often, when worn with toil, and pressed, beyond the powers of 
 his naturally vigorous frame, with the weight of his labours, he has 
 come to town, and visited, as was his custom, almost immediately 
 afterwards, the African Office, notwithstanding that such visits were 
 usually the precursors of enlarged activity ; yet there was not a ser- 
 vant in that employment who, during the period of their most
 
 198 PEEPARATORY MEETING. [^x. 52. 
 
 arduous toils, did not feel his kindness, and gather from his beautiful 
 example fresh motives to patient and enduring activity. Hence, a 
 commission to execute, a paper to copy, or a mission to engage in 
 for Sir Fowell, was undertaken with an alacrity which could not fail 
 to manifest their respect and affection for his character. All loved 
 him, honoured him, and hence strove to please him, with an earnest- 
 ness which is too seldom to be fovmd in the business of life. And 
 when he came amongst them with a brow clouded with care, or in- 
 ternally perhaps labouring under some recent discoveiy, whereby 
 his great scheme of benevolence was retarded, there was not one 
 amongst the paid servants of the office, over which he presided, who 
 did not sympathise with him. There was, indeed, a calmness and a 
 composure in his spirit in his great trials which rendered him an 
 object of peculiar interest in public life. The mind, whilst it seemed 
 as it were so wrapped up in its own contemplations, had not one 
 complaining reflection, as if this or the other course would have been 
 a more successful one. The bitter and cruel reproaches of some 
 portion of the public press in no way affected him. It was evident 
 that he held a principle within himself upon which to fall back ; 
 and, thus staying himself upon the Lord his God, he was enabled to 
 possess his soul in patience, and to rest assured that, in every event, 
 God's providence would finally work for good to the cause of suffer- 
 ing humanity." 
 
 The first meeting of the Society for the Extinction of the 
 Shive Trade and the Ci\alisation of Africa was held at the 
 end of July : it proved highly satisfactory. The Bishop of 
 London, Lord Ashley, Sir Robert Inglis, Sir Thomas Acland, 
 and other influential individuals, took an active part. Con- 
 siderable funds were raised, and, "in short," Mr Buxton 
 writes to Mr Trew, 
 
 " It was a glorious meeting, quite an epitome of the state. Whig, 
 Tory, and Radical ; Dissenter, Low Church, High Church, tip-top 
 High Chui'ch, or Oxfordism, aU united. I was unwell, and made a 
 wretched hand of my exposition, but good men and true came to my 
 assistance, and supplied my deficiencies, and no one better than the 
 Bishop of London. 
 
 " We determined to form two associations perfectly distinct from 
 eacli other, but having one common object in view, tho putting an 
 end to the slave trade and slavery. One of these associations to be 
 of an exclusively j)hilanthr()})ic character, and designed mainly to 
 diffuse among the African tribes the light of Christianity, and the 
 blessings of civilisation and free labour. The other to have a com- 
 mercial character, and to unite with the above objects the pursuit 
 of private enterprise and profit." 
 
 A few days afterwards. Lord Normanby announced to a 
 deputation, consisting, amongst others, of the Bishop of 
 London, Lords Kuston, Worslcy, and Tcigiunouth, Sir T. D. 
 Acland, Sir Fi. II. Inglis, and Dr Lushington, that the
 
 1S39.] CIVILISATION SOCIETY. 199 
 
 Government had come to the conclusion to send a frigate 
 and two steamers to explore the Niger, and if possible to 
 set on foot commercial relations with the tribes on its 
 banks. Sir Edward Parry, the comptroller of steam 
 machinery, was appointed to prepare these vessels, and thus 
 began the Niger expedition. 
 
 The gratification which this success gave Mr Buxton was 
 soon clouded by private sorrows. His much-loved sister, 
 Sarah Maria Buxton, of Northrepps Cottage, died very 
 suddenly at Clifton, on the 18th of August, 1839. This 
 sister, whose brightness and activity of mind triumphed 
 over the infirmity of very feeble health, was ardently de- 
 voted to her brother, and took the liveliest interest in his 
 undertakings. 
 
 He thus mentions the event, in a letter to Mr Joseph J. 
 Gurney : — 
 
 " It is a vast void to us ; she was part of our daily existence ; her 
 affection towards me was surpassing the love of women. However, 
 there is exceeding comfort in the reflection that her battle is fought, 
 her pains endured, her labours completed, and that henceforth a 
 crown of glory is provided for her from her bounteous Lord." 
 
 It was at first hoped that the Niger expedition might 
 have been fitted out very sijeedily, but Sir Edward Parry 
 found that it was necessary for the Government to have 
 ships built expressly for the purpose. In the interval, 
 therefore, Mr Buxton had the opportunity of spending the 
 winter at Rome. But it was necessary for him before he 
 left England to prepare a complete edition of his work on 
 "The Slave Trade and its Eemedy;" the publication of 
 which had been delayed in order to afibrd the Government 
 time to deliberate on the plan. 
 
 TO A FRIEND. 
 
 "Northrepps Hall, November 3, 1839. 
 " I have been working hard during the week, but yesterday we 
 had our hardest day. With the exception of a few minutes in the 
 garden, and a run to the Cottage, and dinner, I did not stop from 
 breakfast tiU past one o'clock at night; and what is more extra- 
 ordinary, I had seven capital secretaries at work, and many of them 
 during the whole day. We got on famously ; till then I had been 
 very doubtful whether I should not be obhged to stay a week longer." 
 
 TO MRS JOHNSTON. 
 
 " London, November 1 8. 
 "My book is finished; there it lies in a bag; a precious tug it has 
 
 P
 
 200 MONT CENIS IN A SNOW-STORM, [^Et. 52. 
 
 been to get it done. I do not think I have worked so hard since I 
 left college ; day after day, from breakfast till two or three o'clock 
 the next morning, with the interval of only a short walk and meals. 
 I quite wonder at my capacity of exertion. 
 
 " The effect of this is that I believe I shall not, when I start to- 
 day, have a single memorandum unattended to, and hardly a letter 
 tuiwritten." 
 
 This exertion was of too severe a cliaracter. He writes 
 from Montreuil, — 
 
 "November 19. 
 
 "Since I left London I have spent four hours in sailing, some 
 time in meals, a few minutes in chat and reading, but my great 
 business has been sleeping, which I have effected with laudable 
 energy." 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVI. 
 
 1839, 1840. 
 
 A FE"W montts of absolute rest had become essential to the 
 restoration of Mr Buxton's health, and he highly prized his 
 holiday. We shall give some copious extracts from his 
 letters, which are written in a style of playfulness very natu- 
 ral to him when relieved from the pressure of business. 
 But even in his amusements, in his shooting, his eager in- 
 quiries into the history of the banditti, and his minute 
 investigation of the state of Roman jaUs, the same force of 
 character appears which had been displayed in the other 
 parts of his career. 
 
 " POSTE ROYALE, MoNT CENIS, 
 
 Nine o clock, November 30, 1839. 
 
 " For our journey from Lyons to Chambery, and from Chambery 
 to Lanslobourg, I refer you to Fowell's journal, only stating that 
 we were in the carriage, and moving, at a quarter before four in the 
 morning, and out of the carriage at twelve o'clock at night. The last 
 two stages were rather awkward ones to pass in the dark, as we had 
 a continued succession of precipices on one side of the road: on one 
 occasion, on seeing a light straight down, an immense way below us, 
 Anna said, ' There is a star, only in the wrong direction.' 
 
 " At Lanslebourg we heard accounts of the roads being very 
 difficult, but still passable and safe ; so we gave them their own 
 time and started this morning at half-past nine, with eight honses 
 to our carriage, two to our cart carrying our luggage, and thu-teen 
 attendants to Vjcar up tlio carriage, in case of diiliculty from the 
 snow. Things went smooth enough till about one o'clock in the 
 d.ay, when we encountered a ' tourmcnte,' as they call it, and, at the 
 H.'iino moment, Bovcral carts coming from Italy loaded with casks of 
 wine. It was difficult enough to keep the carriage up when we had
 
 1839,1840.] A WOLF SEEK 201 
 
 all the road to ourselves (for it was snowing so fast that we could 
 scarcely see,) but when, in addition to all this, we had to break out 
 of the way to make room for these caravans, it was by no means 
 agreeable. Our soundings of the snow, I should tell you, had not 
 been very flattering ; we had, first, a foot deep ; after some time, 
 two feet and a half, four feet, five feet ; and between five and six 
 feet of snow on the level, was the encouraging report just before we 
 met the wine carts. Well, at this pass, just upon the verge of the 
 top of the mountain, the snow falling, the wind howhng, we had this 
 encounter with the caravans ; and, first, there was a war of words 
 between the leader of their train and the maltre de poste of Lausle- 
 bom-g, who had volunteered to conduct our expedition. Words ran 
 to the highest pitch, and the shrillest tones, and the most vehement 
 and menacing action seemed to threaten a charge, in which the ene- 
 my had the safe side, and we the precipice ; but, at length, an 
 amicable compact was made between the belUgerents, by which the 
 whole force of both parties was employed in hoisting their carts 
 further into the snow on their side. All this, however, had con- 
 sumed some time, the tornado had then passed, but the accumula- 
 tion of snow which it had occasioned remained, and here we had 
 our greatest chance of an overturn, but not over the precipice, which 
 was a great way off (full seven feet). 
 
 " Over we must have gone, again and again, if it had not been for 
 our little army, half of whom were on one side pulling the carriage to- 
 wards them ; the rest on the other side holding it up. Spink * tells 
 me, that at times the hind wheel was nearly a foot from the top of 
 the snow. 
 
 " We had just got through this difficulty, when the men cried 
 out, ' There's a wolf ; ' and sure enough there sat the beast ! This 
 was an almost irresistible bait for us ; my gun was loaded after a 
 time (for we had some difficulty in finding the things), but then I 
 recollected that a pretty thing it would be to leave Anna under such 
 circumstances, and go a wolf hunting; so, with a sigh, I was obliged 
 to commit the task to one of our guides, who is a chasseur by pro- 
 fession. He, from ignorance of our guns, got the locks wet and 
 missed fire, and away went the wolf. 
 
 " In comes the maitre de poste, and tells us that it is in vain to 
 attempt to descend this night. So here we are perched in a little 
 bit of an inn at the top of Mont Cenis; the night very quiet, but hazy, 
 which is a bad business, for last night they killed three foxes, and 
 we might have had famous sport at them to-night ; three chasseurs 
 are employed to watch them and give me notice ; but, with sub- 
 mission to them, I now conclude my letter and go to bed, only just 
 saying, that though we are on the top of the Alps, we are very com- 
 fortable and warm, thanks to roaring fires, admirable trout from a 
 
 tarn which is close below us, and double windows I have 
 
 just put my nose out, and it is snowing furiously; we have no great 
 taste for a month here with nothing to eat but foxes, but, neverthe- 
 less, we are very cheery." 
 
 • Miss Gumev's coachman.
 
 202 WILD BOAR HUNTING. [^r. 53, 54. 
 
 The party readied Rome about the 12th December. Mr 
 Buxton thus writes on the 17th : — 
 
 " The weather here is delightful ; I am now sitting opposite a 
 large window on the shady side of the street, wide open, and it is 
 warmer than any day in England last summer. We hear grand 
 accounts of wild boars and woodcocks. I went to the Capitol yes- 
 terday morning. I am old, have never cultivated the iine arts, and 
 all romance has been thumped out of me. One might as well ex- 
 pect to see a hackney coach-horse frisking about like a colt, as to 
 see me in ecstasies and raptures with antiquities and classical recol- 
 lections. However, I was greatly taken with the view of the whole 
 of Rome. There we saw before us, gathered in a very small space, 
 the city so famous for everything : — at one time, the mistress of 
 the world in arms ; at another period, the raler of nations by the 
 fiat of the Vatican ; and, again, the great nursery and school of the arts. 
 You cannot conceive how all the objects of interest are clustered to- 
 gether close around you. Right beneath you, the yellow Tiber ; within 
 gun-shot, as it appears, the palace of the Csesars ; but I will not go 
 on describing, or, in spite of myself, I shall grow quite romantic. 
 But one thing did strike me more than all. In a little narrow dark 
 cell, undoubtedly a Roman dungeon, there is a well-grounded tra- 
 dition that St Paul was confined immediately prior to his martyrdom. 
 What a leaf is this in the history of man ! In that palace lived the 
 proud and cruel Caesar, dreaming of immortal reputation. He is al- 
 most forgotten ; while the prisoner, who lay in the dungeon loaded 
 with chains; despised and detested, is still remembered. We daily 
 read his works, and ten thousand copies of the history of his Ufa 
 are published every day ! 
 
 " To-day I visited the Coliseum, the Flavian Amphitheatre. It 
 wonderfully revives and brings to life their ancient spectacles, — it 
 ia immense ; one can quite understand that a hundred thousand 
 people could have a perfect view of the whole spectacle. The build- 
 ing in its substantial parts is perfect. What an enlightened people 
 to be capable of erecting such an edifice ; and what a set of ruthless 
 savages to take delight in seeing poor captives there slaughtering 
 each other, or torn to pieces by wild beasts ! I have been interested 
 beyond what I could have conceived possible, by these two spectacles, 
 and quite vexed that 1 bring with me so slender a stock of classical lore. 
 
 " But now for business. I was more gratified than you could 
 guess at hearing of your Spitalfields' school ; that is better than 
 Laocoons .and amphitheatres. I will subscribe what you ask with 
 ple.-iHure, and ten times more when you tell me it is wanted. 
 
 " An ofliocr of justice called here this morning with a huge paper 
 in (iiluiiiUH, in wlii(;h I was to describe inj-.self in all possible ways, 
 iiiid concluding with the cpiestion, Why did I come to Rome? I 
 desired Richards to insert, under this head, this — 
 
 ' If tlio truth I miiRt tell, I came hero in the hope, 
 i)[ cuiiiij,' my wife and converting the Pope.' 
 
 But I find tliat the Pope wants no conversion : ho has issued a few 
 days ago a capital bull, hurling the Vatican thunders in excellent
 
 1839, 1840.] WILD BOAR HUNTING. 203 
 
 style on the heads of all dealers in human flesh. The Portuguese 
 minister here is in a fine fury ; but the Pope having got into the 
 scrape, excuses himself from the charge of being actuated by the 
 English, by employing the Propaganda Society to send his bull to 
 all the bishops and ecclesiastical authorities, in Cuba, Brazil, &c. I 
 am mightily pleased with this affair. Pray tell it to the committee 
 when they meet. 
 
 " Pleased as I am with the conduct of his Holiness, I am still 
 more pleased that the steamers are ordered, and to be built, too, 
 under the direction of Sir Edward Parry; this is working to some 
 
 purpose. Dearest 's letter describing the Sunday at their new 
 
 home was cheering and charming : my love to her and to all who 
 formed that sunshinj^ picture. I have thought more than once, 
 more than twenty times, ' that godliness with contentment is great 
 gain.'" 
 
 " Rome. 44 Via dei Condotti. December 24. 
 
 " The time for wild boars is not fully arrived, though there were 
 five in the market this morning. You must know that my chief 
 duty here is to escort young ladies to parties, as my wife cannot go ; 
 so I have become more fashionable and dandy-like than I have been 
 for the last forty years. On Thursday last, in the performance of 
 this duty, I met Mr Wyvill, an old M.P. friend, who told me he wa.s 
 going to hunt the boar, and invited me to join them, which of course 
 I did. Conceive us then, starting before daylight, Fowell and I in- 
 side, and Spuik on the box, with three other carriages full, distance 
 about thirty miles, a road good for the first ten, for the next twenty 
 super-execrable ; with blocks of granite placed on it by the Romans, 
 and never mended since the days of Julius Caesar. The journey would 
 have shattered our own carriage to pieces, killed our horses, and 
 broken the heart of the coachman. However, we all arrived about 
 sunset ; we brought a sumptuous entertainment with us, and were 
 lodged in the house of a priest, which was clean and comfortable. 
 On our road we passed the beautiful lake and castle of Bracciano, 
 which now belongs to Torlonia, the great Jewish banker at Rome. 
 At five next morning we breakfasted, and immediately mounted a 
 herd of various quadrupeds. Mine was a most raw-boned, lazy, 
 stumbling horse, and my right hand suffered much by the effort to 
 get him along ; but after a while, seeing that Spink had a sprightly 
 jackass, I changed with him and got on gloriously. Seven miles of 
 rock and quagmire, and stumps of trees, brought us to our hunting- 
 ground, where we saw congregated our native ' compagnons de 
 chasse.' The leader was Velati, the Roman painter, and a fine fel- 
 low. He put us in our places, after first marching us over a fine 
 wooded mountain. This made me reekmg hot; but I was soon 
 well cooled, for I was located in a dank sunless valley, the steam 
 from which soon rusted my barrels, and made Spink's hands die 
 away. There I stood for an hour and a half with my rifle in my 
 hand. Spink said to me, * They tell me these beasts fly out upon 
 you,' and forthwith he produced a case of pistols, but he had no 
 opportunity this time of using them. By sound of bugle we were 
 ordered over the next hill, and such a scene opened upon us !
 
 204: SHOOTING ON NUMICIAN LAKE. [^t. 53. 
 
 never saw such a combination of the sublime and the lovely. Our 
 next station was on a jutting rock high up the mountain, the sun 
 in full power, and as hot as with us in July ; a valley below us, a 
 high hill (the Monte Sacro) opposite, we ourselves surrounded with 
 luyi-tle, wild lavender, and arbutus loaded with fruit ; and all below 
 and opposite, the same splendid foliage. In the distance Soracte, 
 and to the right the blue Mediterranean. 
 
 " The assemblage of the boar hunt at luncheon was most curious ; 
 forty dogs of every degree, from the turnspit to the wolf-hound, 
 upwards of seventy native chasseurs with guns in their hands, clad 
 in skins, — and fame is a lying vixen if they do not at odd times do 
 a little in the bandit line ; but here we were upon honour. Two 
 foxes, two deer, and six boars were the product of the excursion. I 
 have wild boar enough to stock a butcher's shop ; one of the boars 
 was the biggest that has been killed for eight years, weighing 
 400 lbs. I have the tusks of the second, which are awkward 
 weapons. You will want to know what F. and I did ; but I am as 
 modest in relation as valiant in deeds of arms, and so I only say 
 that each of us did as much as any gentleman of the party. We 
 started for home by moonlight, my donkey had been usurped, and 
 I bestrode another of no generous breed ; go he would not, and we 
 were left behind. Again I changed with Spink, to whom Fortune 
 had given a capital horse, and I soon joined and headed our party. 
 Well was it we regained the party, or we should assuredly have 
 slept in the open field or in the cave of a bandit ; for after a time I 
 was seized by a furious cramp, and had to be hauled off my horse, 
 and this delayed us half-an-hour." 
 
 " December 25. 
 
 " Last night I finished the history of our excursion against the 
 boars on Monte Sacro. I am now going to tell you of another dis- 
 trict famous in classic lore. On Monday, Prince Borghese Aldobran- 
 dini, the Duke Roviero, Aubin, Richards, Charles and I, two dogs, 
 and a chasseur, started precisely at four a.m. for Ostia, the very spot 
 where jEneas pitched his camp, so if you wish to have a description 
 of it, you may turn to Virgil. We travelled about fifteen miles 
 along a very decent road, the Tiber almost always close beside us. 
 At length we came to a lake, ' fontis vada sacra Nimiici,' on which, 
 we all embarked, each having a boat, and started in exact line 
 up the lake, which was covered with wild-fowl. I think we 
 must have seen at one time at least a thousand upon the wing 
 together. We had to sit in the boats and fire as they came by. 
 Tlie two boats that went near the reeds had plenty of sport, but as 
 I was in the middle, and had but one gun, I did not get many shots, 
 and the powition being awkward, and the distances very long, I was 
 not exceedingly destructive. We got, however, upwards of seventy 
 head, and it was something to be shooting wild-fowl within sight of 
 llio grove of pines recorded by Virgil, and on tlie very spot where 
 KisuH and Euryalus perished. Pray read the story in Virgil, book 
 ix., and in Drydeii, for the benefit of the ladies. The most curious 
 ]).irt of the afl'air was the test it afforded of the climate. On the 
 X'A of December, I started on the lake, in a wet boat, before sun-
 
 1830.] ST PETER'S. 205 
 
 rise, without anything on but my September shooting clothes, and 
 there I sat till three o'clock in the afternoon without moving, no 
 glove on my right hand, and my feet in damp hay ; a heavy fog 
 prevailed during part of the morning, and we v/ere often enveloped 
 in thick reeds ; but during the whole time I had not a sensation of 
 cold, and only suffered from the bite of musquitoes. 
 
 " To-day I have been, for the first time, at St Peter's, and seen 
 high mass performed by the Pope himself. But to tell you the 
 truth, I and my scribe are very sleepy ; therefore, instead of attempt- 
 ing to give you a notion of the wonderful grandem- of the building, 
 or the splendour of the ceremonies, I shall confine myself to say- 
 ing that, as a show, it was pre-eminently grand ; as a service, there 
 was 
 
 ' Devotion's evei-y grace, except the heart.' 
 For ornament, for the display of wealth, for music, for, in short, a scene, 
 fifty to one on St Peter's Cathedral against the Friends' Meeting at 
 Plaistow ; for religion, for worship m spirit and in truth, fifty to one 
 on Plaistow Meeting against St Peter's and all its glories ! " 
 
 It has been mentioned that on quitting England Mr Bux- 
 ton had completed his work on the slave trade, and had 
 left it to be printed. When, however, proof copy was pre- 
 pared, it was found by those who were superintending the 
 publication that very considerable alterations in the arrange- 
 ment were expedient. On this being communicated to 
 him, he replies : — 
 
 " Decemher 26, 1839. 
 
 " I wrote last night a ranting letter about wild boars and Nisus 
 and Euryalvis, as if these were the only things deserving attention ; 
 but your letter of December 11, received to-day, has brought me to 
 my senses, and I am as much in the book as the day I left North- 
 repps 
 
 " In truth I give you at once the warmest thanks, and the most 
 Learty approval of these very untoward suggestions. In fact, the 
 more I have thought of it, the more I have assented, nay, have 
 thought it indispensable, and loathe the higgledy-piggledy fashion 
 
 in which I had tossed my points together Idleness would 
 
 have said, sit still ; nervousness the same ; you might naturally have 
 felt, ' I know you to be a hard man, apt to be indignant at those 
 who offer advice, take that is thine own, and a pretty hash it will 
 be ! '" 
 
 TO E. N. BUXTON, ESQ. 
 
 "Rome, January 1, 1840. 
 " . . . . The tramontane, or northern wind, has come down upon 
 us and has cooled us ; nevertheless, we spent three hours yesterday 
 most pleasantly, in walking together about the grounds of the Villa 
 Albani ; as many the day before on the Palatine Hill. It is won- 
 derful what a deal there is to see in this city But in all their 
 
 finery there is dirt, and, on the other hand, in the midst of their 
 dirt, there is some remnant of magnificence. You will see a palace
 
 206 SHOOTING ON PONTINE MARSHES. [^t. 63, 
 
 and a pigstye close together ; and, moreover, the pigstye wiU have 
 a small touch of the palace, and the palace a large touch of the pig- 
 stye. Nothing, however, can exceed the beauty and luxuriance of 
 the villas round about Rome. I only wish you had seen the deep 
 blue sky over the Albani villa ; the residences of Cicero and Horace 
 before us ; the hills, some of them covered with snow ; and a pro- 
 fusion of roses and oranges growing in the gardens around." 
 
 TO JOSEPH J. GURNET, ESQ. »^^„„„,y g^ J840. 
 
 " How passing strange it is, that I should write from Rome, ad- 
 dressing you in Barbadoes. I wish we could change places for a few 
 days. Neither St Peter's, nor the Capitol, nor the dying gladiator, 
 nor Apollo himself, all beautiful as he is, are so interesting to me 
 as would be the sight of the negroes, working for their own benefit, 
 and sheltered by law from the lash of the cart-whip. It is a sight I 
 pant to behold. 
 
 " And now as to my worthy self. I have enjoyed both the coun- 
 try and the wonderful works of art in Rome, more than I had any 
 notion that I could. I sometimes laugh at my own romancings, and 
 wonder that such an old, untaught man should give way to such true 
 pleasure, in matters which he does not understand. Rome is, 
 in truth, a wonderful place. There is hardly anything more re- 
 markable than the profusion of its treasures. What Rome must 
 have been in its glory, when the relics are so surprising ! . . . . 
 
 " Everything bespeaks wonderful intellect on the part of the Ro- 
 mans ; but then the base, cruel, cowardly ruffians ! Fancy the whole 
 population pouring into the Coliseum, to see the poor captives hew 
 one another to pieces, and finding infinite dehght and merriment in 
 8uch a holiday !" 
 
 TO EDWARD N. BUXTON, ESQ. 
 
 "January 21. 
 "I picture to myself your arriving at Nortlirepps on Monday, 
 January 13, and you and your party hugely enjoying yourselves 
 during the week ; and I fancy I know precisely where you shot each 
 day, if not the exact nximber of the slain. I thought you had an 
 especial nice party ; but why did Gurney Hoare absent himself ? I 
 suppose that Edmund was at tlie top of the tree. I hope you took 
 decent care of yourselves, age and wisdom being absent, I at Rome, 
 and Sam Hoare at Lombard Street. You may well suppose that I 
 was un pnt, fdrhe to be absent the first time for more than twenty 
 years from my humble task of attending to the wants and promot- 
 ing the sport of a rabble of boys. I was resolved, liowever, to con- 
 sole myself as best I might, and I accomplished tliis so efiectually, 
 tli.'it I ilm ready to back the I'ontine Marshes against all Norfolk. 
 On Monday, most of our party embarked, witli three dogs, on board 
 a liugo monster of a vehicle, and rumbled along to Albano. The 
 next mf)riiiiig, f)ur friend {'resswell, myself, the cacciatore, and our 
 Italian servant I'ittini, with three Italian pointers and little Juno, 
 pursued our voyage, leaving the boys and girls behind, and reached 
 ('istenia at ten, where we had fair ac(^oinmodation, and made friends 
 with another shooting-party, who breakfasted and dined with us.
 
 1840.] ADVENTURE WITH ROBBERS. 207 
 
 We shot in the woods, an immense tract of which extends on each 
 side of the road. 
 
 " On Thursday morning we passed early through Tre Ponti, the 
 ' Three Taverns ' of Scripture, and thence went on, five miles fur- 
 ther, to Appii Forum, so called now, and so called in the days of St 
 Paul. I read St Paul's account of his journey : and on the road he 
 traversed, and in view of the very same hills which he saw, (and 
 most remarkable hills they are,) I pictured to myseK his friends ap- 
 proaching, ' whom, when Paul saw, he thanked God and took cou- 
 rage.' 
 
 " We had a letter from the Duke of Braschi, the owner of twenty 
 miles square hereabouts, to his steward, who resides in an immense 
 old building, once the palace of the Braschi ; and at an earlier pe- 
 riod, a great monastery. The steward was absent, and, alas ! the 
 key of the cellar was in his pocket ; the servants, however, received 
 us with all civUity. 
 
 " Our first inquiry was about beds. To look at, they were very 
 well. ' Have they been slept in ? ' I inquired. ' Oh ! yes.' ' Who 
 slept last in my bed ? ' ' The Duke of Braschi himself.' ' When was 
 the Duke last here ? ' ' Ten years ago was his last visit.' So my bed, 
 it was quite clear, had not been slept in for ten years ! The house 
 was haunted to the last degree ; it was quite a preserve of ghosts. 
 But there were more rats than ghosts, more fleas than rats, more 
 musquitoes than fleas, and more musical frogs than any of them. 
 In the morning I saw poor Cresswell ; in addition to my musicians, 
 he had had four indefatigable cats, who during the livelong night 
 had serenaded him for admission into his room, where our game was 
 lodged, and over his window was a dovecot, into which the rats 
 were continually making commandos ; in short, he had enjoyed such 
 a concord of ' sweet sounds,' as conferred upon him what Milton caUs 
 *a sober certainty of wakiug bliss.' " 
 
 "February 3. 
 
 " Now prepare your mind for an adventure which occurred to us 
 in our shooting excursion on Saturday, into which good live ban- 
 ditti are introduced, and blows struck, and all the charming accom- 
 paniments of daggers and pistols. You will be dying, I am sure, to 
 hear the story, and to learn the return of killed, wounded, and pri- 
 soners. But suspend your curiosity, be content with knowing, for 
 the present, that our adventure is to-day the talk of all Rome, and 
 that troops are sent off to the marshes to shoot, not snipes, but rob- 
 bers ; at least I suppose so. But to business first, if you please. 
 
 " Well, now, sleepy as I am, I will tell you our story : — On Satur- 
 day morning, Aubin, I, and Spink, in the inside, our cacciatore and 
 the coachman on the box, with our three dogs, started to Macarese 
 after the snipes. You may remember that I told you in a former 
 letter the distance of this marsh, also that we saw in the road the 
 blood of a man who had been murdered the preceding night, and a 
 little cross stuck into the hedge to commemorate the event. About 
 half a mile further on, turning into a gate, we observed another 
 cross, intimating that another murder had been committed since our
 
 208 ADVENTUEE WITH ROBBERS. [JEt. 54, 
 
 last visit ; and I hear there is no part of the country where jou will 
 find a more choice collection of robbers and assassins than this same 
 Macarese. I took Spink merely to attend me ; but he had the wit 
 to borrow a little single-barrelled gun, and as I saw he was bent upon 
 signalising himself, I had not the heart to baulk him. Alas ! the 
 waters were down and the snipes were up, and, though we shot 
 capitally, we only managed to get eleven couple. We might have 
 brought home a rare stock of vipers if we had wished it, for we saw 
 about a dozen in a quarter of an hour. When we were going to 
 have luncheon I selected my spot, but little Juno made such a fuss 
 that we looked into it, and saw a viper nearly two feet long. We 
 removed, and out of the bush at our feet went another great bang- 
 ing fellow. 
 
 " We lunched, however, and went again at the snipes. At length 
 we started towards home ; but an unlucky jack snipe seduced Spink 
 some way back again. He went after it and killed it. No sooner 
 was his gun off, than from a broad, almost impenetrable hedge, 
 which crosses the swamp, out rushed two fellows ; the first who ar- 
 rived snatched his gun, the other seized his coUar, gave him a hard 
 kick on his leg, and drew a long knife out of his side-pocket. Could 
 any situation be more forlorn ? we out of hearing, his gun discharged, 
 his knees knocking together through terror, his head turning round 
 and round, his heart in his mouth. I use his own expressions, and 
 never did I hear so vivid a description as he gave of the scene, — for 
 he lives to tell it. What did he do in such adversity ? Why, exact- 
 ly the right thing : he let go his gun, put his two hands into his 
 waistcoat pockets, and produced from each a pocket pistol, loaded, 
 capped, and cocked, and presented one at the breast of each robber ! 
 The state of affairs was suddenly changed. The heroes, who a mo- 
 ment before jabbered so loud, and kicked so hard, turned tail, drop- 
 ped the gun, and dashed into the hedge, and Spink remained master 
 of the field of battle. But he did not keep it long. ' I seized the 
 gun,' said he, ' I did not know where I was, nor anything about it ; 
 I ran through a pool up to my waist, and never stopped till I fell 
 from fright and want of breath ; then I loaded and fired my gun as 
 a signal of distress.' Now I must tell you that we had waited nearly 
 half-an-hour for him, somewhat disconcerted at being detained; and 
 thought it very cool of him to be following his sport while we were 
 kicking our licels. This gave occasion to the cacciatore to exercise 
 the wit, for which he is famed. ' Why the man must have got a 
 charm, he has had more shots than all of us put together, he must 
 hereafter be called The Fortunate Youth.' Little did we dream that 
 the poor fellow was then in the extremity of distress, hardly able to 
 move, and not knowing whether his road lay to the right or to the 
 left. But upon hearing another gun fired by him, it occurred to 
 me that ho might bo making signals, so having fired our guns, which 
 Kingularly enough ho never heard, (proltably ho was lying down in a 
 kind of HWdon from ovor-exortion,) I began to halloo as loud as ever 
 I could, and at length he heard me, and was cheered by the sound 
 of my voice, and camo running after us. 
 
 " WIk'H he arrived nuar nic, I was beginning an oration to apprise
 
 1840.] PROPAGANDA MISSIONS. 209 
 
 him how we had been all kept waiting ; when, on looking into his 
 face I saw him pale as ashes, and looking most strange and bewil- 
 dered. I immediately gave him some brandy, told him to compose 
 himself, and at length we heard the history of his adventures. 
 
 " His extreme satisfaction that he had not shot the two men, 
 which if they had persisted a moment longer he certainly would have 
 done; his most natural and graphic description of his exquisite 
 terror; his conviction that neither he nor his mistress would ever 
 have been happy again if the blood of these men had been upon his 
 hands ; his deep detestation of snipe-shooting, marshes, Rome, and 
 Romans ; his solemn resolution never to quit my side if he had the 
 misfortune again to go a shooting; his vivid apprehensions, and most 
 anxious inquiries whether we thought there was a chance of our get- 
 ting back again to Rome without encountering a fresh gang of 
 banditti — these beguiled otir way home. 
 
 " Everybody approves the course he took ; and it seems likely to 
 be the fashion for every one, in imitation of him, to carry pistols in 
 their waistcoat pockets when they go out shooting. I ought to have 
 told you that, probably, these fellows had been watching us all day. 
 I saw one creeping along on the other side of the hedge some time 
 before, and if I could have spoken Italian, should have tempted him 
 to assume the place of my attendant which Spink had relinquished. 
 Well, there ends my story. I wish you could have heard him teU 
 what he felt when these hideous fellows rushed out, and when the 
 knife met his eyes. It was, as he told the story, not only very tragi- 
 cal, but irresistibly comical. To do him justice, however, I am right 
 glad that the accident befel him and not me. I am afraid if I had 
 had a pair of pistols in my hand, under such circumstances, in such 
 a fright, I should have had to bear upon my nerves a sense of two 
 human beings plunged into a most awful eternity. But, good 
 night. Rome is affluent in robbers, we hear of a robbery or murder 
 every day, and a gang has taken post they say in a wood twelve 
 miles off." * 
 
 TO SAMUEL HOAEE, ESQ. 
 
 "January 28. 
 
 " Of one thing assure yourself, my visit to Rome has not tended 
 to make me a Roman Catholic. This city has as many fountains and 
 as much dirt, as many priests and as much wickedness, as any in the 
 world. Not, however, but that there is a great deal to admire here. 
 The spirit and stimulus with which they urge forward their religion, 
 is well worthy the imitation of Protestants. I was yesterday with 
 Father Glover, one of the five who rule the Jesuits, and he told me 
 that their Propaganda Society for Missions gets £40,000 a year. 
 
 " Their mode of proceeding is this : one man engages to collect 
 the subscription, amounting to a halfpenny per week, from ten per- 
 sons; another, of a higher order, collects ten of these first, and so 
 on ; so that, in substance, the last person is answerable for the sub- 
 scriptions of a thousand. Their plan, also, of missions, is admirable; 
 their missionaries in every country are instructed to look out for 
 
 * This gang, % few days afterwards, robbed Don Miguel, the ex-king of Por- 
 tugal, as ho was returning from a shooting excursion.
 
 210 ROMAN PRISONS. " [^t. 54. 
 
 young men of talent and zeal, and likely to make good missionaries. 
 These they import to Rome, and give them, in their Propaganda 
 College, a first-rate education. They detain them there, if upon 
 their first coming they understand the rudiments of Latin, &c., seven 
 years, otherwise twelve, and then send them back as missionaries to 
 the country from which they were taken. In this way, they have 
 here at present under education, 130 young men from all parts of 
 the world, and recently discourses were delivered by them in forty- 
 three different languages ; and they seem a body of very intelligent 
 and well-educated youths. 
 
 " No wonder, then, that their religion spreads as it seems to be 
 doing. In 1825, they had but thirteen Roman Catholics in Guiana, 
 and now there are 5000 ! When the United States separated from 
 Great Britain, they had one bishop, twenty priests, and a small 
 Roman Catholic population. They have now 1,500,000 Roman 
 CathoUcs ! Surely these facts, which I collected from the head 
 of the Jesuits, are both stimulating and instructive. 
 
 " But now for another matter, on which I am really distressed for 
 the want of your assistance. You advise me to visit the prisons. 
 The fact is, I have been doing so. I thought it a shame for an old 
 prison fancier to be here with so much to be seen in this way, and 
 not to devote some portion of his leisure to it. I therefore made a 
 formal application to the Cardinal Minister, and almost immediately 
 I received, to the astonishment of both Romans and English, a full 
 permission to visit all the gaols, with the offer of every species 
 of information ; also all the hospitals, and all the places for educa- 
 tion. To the two last, the Cardinal offered to accompany me ; but, 
 as yet, I have not been to them, and it is very likely I shall not have 
 time, but a party of us have gone the round of the prisons within Rome. 
 To-morrow, I visit the prison hospitals; and on Friday next, I go 
 to two large outlying gaols. I shall then have completed this part 
 of my work, as far as Rome is concerned. There are some large 
 prisons at a distance within the Papal dominions, and these I shall 
 endeavour to see. 
 
 " The subject has attracted some attention. The Romans are 
 mightily taken with it, and look upon the permission given to me, 
 as an unheard-of instance of liberality on the part of their Sovereign, 
 and beg that I will avail myself of the opportunity and speak out. 
 Three English nolileiiien have been amongst the number of my com- 
 panions, and they are engageil to go with me on Friday. I was 
 yesterday taken by one of them to Lord Shrewsbury, who tolls me 
 that Prince Borghese is inclined to establish a Prison Discipline 
 Society. This is what I am at now. 
 
 " The state of the prisons is substantially this : they are very 
 clean, (to be sure they knew we were coining, and it must be remem- 
 bered thronghdut, tliat we were never able to take them by surprise,) 
 the rooms are very lofty, and tlie air alwaj's fresh and good ; the 
 jtrovisionH good in (piality, and, I should think, sufficient. But one 
 of the questions wiiich I especially want you to give mo an answer 
 upon is, what, in addition to a ladlcful of weak meat soup — being in 
 quantity, I should iiiiajf'ue, abut three (piiu'tcrs of a pint, ought to
 
 1840.] ROMAN PRISONS. 211 
 
 be the allowance of bread for a prisoner, not in solitude and not 
 employed ? 
 
 " I now come to the defects. There is no such thing as classifica- 
 tion, except, indeed, an attempt upon a small scale with regard to 
 boys. Male prisoners of all ages and for all crimes, from common 
 assault to murder, are congregated together. In one instance, there 
 were 200 in one spacious room. There is no inspection whatsoever. 
 There is no work for the great majority. The felons convicted and 
 sentenced for long periods are worked in the pubUc streets ; but the 
 remainder, tried and untried, (and they amount to several hundreds,) 
 have nothing whatever to do. There is no regular gaol-deUvery; so 
 that we met with several persons who had been detained before trial 
 for upwards of a year. There is no school; and, with the exception of 
 mass on the Sunday, and the repetition of a creed at nightfall, there 
 is httle effort made to convey religious instruction. These, I think, 
 are the leading particulars. I should have said, however, that there 
 are no chains, except for persons convicted of infamous crimes, 
 (answering to our felonies,) and that there is neither the solitary nor 
 the silent system. 
 
 " Now, then, I want you and Crawford to tell me what I should 
 lu-ge upon the Government. They have plenty of space about their 
 gaols, so that there is room enough within the walls for any improve- 
 ment ; but the Government is poor. 
 
 " I find myself considerably at a loss from my inability to revive 
 my old prison discipline lore. I am doing my best to get a book, 
 (which I think I once read; ) it was written in the earlier stages of the 
 prison discipline question, and is called, if I recollect right, ' Buxton 
 on Prison Discipline.' If I get this, it will be something ; but I look 
 far more to an immediate communication from you and Crawford. 
 
 " Neri, who I understand bears the title of Chancellor, and is ? 
 very intelligent man, accompanied me through all the gaols, and has 
 earnestly asked me to apply, both to our Government and your 
 society, for any documents, plans, &c., which might be useful to a 
 Government desiring to improve its prisons. So, if you please, you 
 must get me what your society can furnish, and Crawford must 
 apply to the Marquis of Normauby, who wiU, I am sure, cheerfully 
 lend his assistance in such a cause. 
 
 " Executions are rare, especially considering that murders are so, 
 plentiful. They told me that there were only two or three in a year. 
 I ought to add, that books are not allowed to the prisoners, except 
 by special permission. We saw, I think, but four or five in all the 
 gaols." 
 
 TO MRS JOHNSTON. 
 
 "Januarg 31, 1840. 
 " I must tell you about the dinner party at Lord Shrewsbury's 
 
 yesterday I had scarcely entered the room before a Mon- 
 
 signor seized my hand and alfected to kiss it ; this was the Governor 
 of Rome, who had given us the order of admission into all the 
 prisons, hospitals, &c. He and I had a very interesting con- 
 versation, and as long a one as could well be expected, considering 
 that he vmderstood but two words of English, and I about three
 
 212 THE SAN MICHELE ASYLUM. [^t. 54. 
 
 of Italian. Oh ! thia plague of languages ! Next came up Prince 
 Borghese, a very pleasing young man, who spoke a little English, 
 and before whom I threw the proposal that he should become the 
 chairman of a Prison Discipline Association. I was afterwards in- 
 troduced to the Due de Bordeaux, with whom I had some conversa- 
 tion on the slave trade, and who expressed a wish to see my book. 
 He also said mighty civil things. Poor fellow ! he has a sweet ex- 
 pression of countenance ; conceive Mrs , with the same expres- 
 sion, and the same extreme clearness and cleanliness of skin, but 
 with broader features and a stouter person, and a heavier eye, and 
 you have a good picture of the man. 
 
 " The Pretender's course is not a smooth one. If he has either 
 extreme of character he may do well. Let him be excessively quiet, 
 devoid of ambition and enterprise, that may do. Or let him be 
 clever, daring, sagacious, ambitious, and commanding, and that, per- 
 haps, will do. But, if there is any mixture in his composition, — if 
 the least dash of adventure is coupled with his love of ease, or the 
 least love of peace is mingled with his ambition, he will assuredly be a 
 martyr. One cannot see the Duke without hking him, and wishing 
 that he may have the good sense to steer clear of turbulent politics. 
 
 " At dinner I sat next to Lady Shrewsbury's sister, who told me 
 everything about everybody. Among the rest, that that beautiful 
 refined creature, the Princess Doria, actually goes every day in the 
 Holy Week to wash the feet of the patients in the hospital. Well ! 
 well ! good people may abhor the Roman Catholics if they please, 
 and may feel, as I do, that they are led dangerously astray in their 
 doctrines, but I never will join in setting them down as creatures 
 devoid of deep feelings of rehgion, nor can I deny that there is 
 humility and self-denial in such an act as I have described. 
 
 " On Tuesday, after seeing the San Michele, I went with Lord 
 Meath, Lord De Mauley, and Richards, to the church of San Au- 
 gustmo. The panels adjacent to the altar were covered with knives 
 and pistols, whicli had been presented by robbers and murderers to 
 the Virgin. I suppose you have heard of Spink's adventure ; it 
 made us look upon the knives with something more of interest. On 
 Wednesday we went to the Corsini Palace : there are two suck y)\c- 
 tures there of Christ, with a crown of thorns; the one, the Ts'cce 
 Jlomo of Guerciuo, the otlier, in some respects still more touching, 
 l)y Carlo Dolce. There was also the exquisite picture of the Virgin 
 and Child, by Murillo. I longed to steal it. Yesterday we saw a 
 splendid collection at the Borgliese Palace, and then we had a long 
 conversation with a Jesuit. I am very anxious to make myself 
 master of their system of missions and (jf that of the Lyons Society. 
 They seem to ellect so much, with means so limited; besides, I am 
 persuaded they are upon the right principle. Their whole fight is 
 for native missionaries. Their lirst act is to establish schools, in 
 wliich, however, the instruction of the people is a very secondary 
 object; tiie main jiurposo being to get a number of children, so far 
 educated that they may pick out a few fitted by talent, disposition, 
 and reatly reception of Christianity, to bo sent to Rome to receive a 
 thorough education. Hr-e they detain them, in some cases for
 
 1840.] THE JESUITS. 213 
 
 seven, in others for twelve years, and send them Taack, well instructed 
 as naissionaries, to their own country. 
 
 " Now I must tell you that the Jesuits and I are playing a game 
 of chess. They hope, I fancy, from my willingness to listen, from 
 my eagerness to learn, from my ready laudation of all that I find 
 reason to approve, that they will make me a convert to Popery. I, 
 on the other hand, wish to make myself master of the secrets of the 
 system which has rendered the Jesuit missions so eminently success- 
 ful ; and I tell them without reserve that this is my object. Never- 
 theless, they are vastly communicative. 
 
 " I was adverse to the Catholic religion when I left England, be- 
 cause I saw the error of their doctrines ; but now, when I see in 
 their practice the fruit of their system, and the depravity of the 
 people that are so taught, I am still more Protestant than ever, if it 
 be possible. To do them justice, preaching Christ is part of their 
 practice, but the divine powers of our Saviour are shared with the 
 Virgin Mary, and she takes not only the mother's, but the lion's 
 portion. Then their system of religion seems to be destitute of 
 spirituality. Moreover, they seem to teach scarcely any morality. 
 I found my wife yesterday announcing to our Italian maid the novel 
 intelligence of the Ten Commandments. This girl had had an edu- 
 cation, but apparently not a very profound one ; for according, as 
 she said, to the practice of Rome, she had only remained at school 
 one week, in order to learn how to say mass. 
 
 " I have just been looking out of the window at the rain, the like 
 of which I never saw, except at our pic-nic at Beckham, when, as 
 some one described it, ' the drops were as thick as hail, and every 
 drop a pailful.' Collier (the Jesuit) told us of a speech of a priest 
 in Maranham against slavery, of so powerful a nature that after it 
 the whole congregation liberated their slaves ; and he said that 
 priests in slave colonies had been the natural and enthusiastic pro- 
 tectors of the negroes. He also used or quoted a sentence which 
 just hit the mark in my mind. Speaking of some one he said, ' He 
 is of the body of the church, but not of its soid.' " 
 
 TO SAMUEL HOARE, ESQ. 
 
 " Rome, March 3. 
 " I have had occasion to remember the excursion to the prison at 
 St Albans which you and I took long ago, when, on Monday morning, 
 Richards and I were trotting along in a diligence to Civita Vecchia. 
 The gaol there, which was the object of our journey, is an old and 
 strong fortress close by the sea, and contains 1364 desperate-looking 
 criminals, all for the most aggravated offences. I am sure you never 
 saw such a gang of malefactors, or such a horrid dimgeon. We went, 
 first, into a vaulted room, with a low ceiling, as I measured it, thirty- 
 one yards long, twenty-one broad. There was light, but obscure. 
 A good deal of the room was taken up by the buttresses which sup- 
 ported the arches. The noise on our entrance was such as may be 
 imagined at the entrance of hell itself. All were chained most 
 heavily, and fastened down. The murderers and desperate bandits 
 are fixed to that spot for the rest of their lives ; they are chained to
 
 214 PRISONS AT CI VITA VECCHIA. [^t. 54. 
 
 a ring, fastened to the end of the platform, on which they lie side 
 by side, but they can move the length of their chain on a narrow 
 gangway. Of this class, there were upwards of 700 in the prison ; 
 some of them famed for a multitude of murders; many, we are told, 
 had committed six or seven ; and, indeed, they were a ghastly crew, 
 — haggard, ferocious, reckless assassins. I do not think that the 
 attendant jailer very much liked our being there. A sergeant, in 
 uniform, was ordered to keep close by me ; and I observed that he 
 kept his hand upon his sword, as we walked up the alley between 
 the adjacent platforms. 
 
 " There was a fourth room at some distance, and our guide em- 
 ployed many expedients to divert us from going there .... This 
 was worse than any of the others : the room lower, damper, darker, 
 
 and the prisoners with, if possible, a more murderous look 
 
 The mayor afterwards told us, that he in his official capacity knew 
 that there was a murder every month among the prisoners. I spoke 
 to a good many of them, and, with one exception, each said that he 
 was condemned for murder or stabbing. I wiU tell you one short 
 conversation. ' What are you here for ? ' said I to a heavy-looking 
 fellow, lying on his back at the end of the room. He made no an- 
 swer ; but a prisoner near him, with the sharp features and dark 
 complexion of an Italian, promptly said, ' He is here for stabbing,' 
 (giving a thrust with his hand to show how it was done.) ' And why 
 is he in this part of the prison ? ' ' Because he is incorrigible.' 
 ' And what were you condemned for ?' ' For murder.' ' And why 
 placed here?' ' Sono incorivgible.' .... In short, this prison com- 
 bines together, in excess, all the evils of which prisons are capable. 
 It is, as the mayor said, a sink of all the iniquity of the state. The 
 Capuchins certainly preach them a sermon on the Sunday, and afford 
 them an opportunity of confession ; of which, if the prisoners avail 
 themselves, the priests must have enough to do. The sight of it 
 has kindled in my mind a very strong desire, that the old Prison 
 Discipline Society should make a great effort, and visit all the prisons 
 of the world. I had hoped that sound principles of prison discipline 
 had sjiread themselves more widely ; but I now fear that there are 
 places, and many of them, in the world, in which it is horrible that 
 human beings should live, and still more horrible that they should 
 die." 
 
 " March 4. 
 
 " Having in yesterday's letter given you a heavy and dreary ac- 
 count of the prisons here, I must now furnish you with a history of 
 some of their inmates. In the citadel of Civita Vocchia, Gasparoni 
 and his gang are confined, and have been so for the last fourteen 
 years. There are many renowned robbers in this country, but none 
 BO celebrated as this Gasparoni ; and 1 had the honour of an inter- 
 view of two hours with him and his band. Ho is a very fine-look- 
 ing fellow, about five feet eleven high, with as strong and brick-wall 
 an arm as ever I felt, except, pcrhajis, General Turner's; he wore 
 an old velvet coat, which had seen service with him, and a large 
 peak(;d hat. There was nothing ferocious in the expression of his 
 countenance. I am g<jing to have his picture taken, a compliment
 
 1840.] ITALIAN BANDITTI— GASPAROXI. 215 
 
 which his appearance well deserves ; for he is the heau-ideal of a 
 Robin Hood or Rob Roy. By his side there was a fiendish-looking 
 wretch, who pLigued us with his interruptions. This fellow is said 
 to have joined the band chiefly from his love of human blood, and 
 his post was that of executioner. 
 
 " Gasparoni was very communicative; only that either from the 
 modesty which belongs to great men, or some latent hope of pardon, 
 he greatly underrates his own exploits. For exam^^le, to my ques- 
 tion, ' How many people have you murdered ? ' he replied, ' I can- 
 not exactly recollect, somewhere about sixty ! ' whereas it is noto- 
 rious that he has slaughtered at least double the number. Indeed, 
 the mayor of Civita Vecchia assured me, that he had i-eceived au- 
 thentic information of two hundred ; but he believed that even that 
 number was still below the mark. This man, accordmg to his own 
 account, when he was but a young lad, killed a person in a quarrel 
 and fled to the mountains, where he was joined by a few young men 
 of similar character. Before he was twenty years old he had com- 
 mitted ten murders, and was at the head of a baud of fifteen or 
 twenty robbers, which afterwards amounted to about thirty of his 
 own bodyguard; but there were two or thi'ee other bauds under 
 separate commanders, one of whom was his brother ; he, however, 
 was lord paramount. 
 
 " It is incontestable that he kept a district of counfay of at least 
 one hundred miles in circumference, between Rome and Naples, in 
 the utmost terror and subjection. Those proprietors who were not 
 alalia by him, fled l^ie country, and were obliged to receive such a 
 modicum of rent, as the tenants who compounded with Gasparoni 
 chose to pay ; but the black mail which he levied was not extrava- 
 gant. The Government at first offered two hundred crowns for his 
 head. This mounted up at last to three thousand crowns, and that 
 was the fixed price fur many years, and a thousand soldiers were 
 regularly employed in hunting him. ' But how then,' said I, ' did 
 you escape ? ' ' That you will never understand,' he re^jlied, ' till 
 you see the rocks and precipices that are there. I and my men 
 knew every turn ; we have olten been close to the soldiers, and let 
 them pass us, when they had no notion they had such near neigh- 
 bours.' Gasjmroni had many conflicts with the military, in which 
 he was uniformly successful ; but in one aSair he received a ball in 
 the lower part of his neck, the scar of which he shewed us. He de- 
 scribed one conflict, in which, with ten or twelve of his men, he beat 
 off, as he said, thirty soldiers ; but the ill-looking scoundrel by his 
 side said there were full sixty. 
 
 " Gasparoni's headquarters were at Sonnino, where his wife and 
 children resided, and where the whole population were devoted to 
 him. This town had obtained so evil a reputation, that on his sur- 
 render the Pope made a great effort to get it razed to the ground, 
 bvit could not get the assent of the proprietor I was interested by 
 learning from him that the haunts he chiefly occupied for the pur- 
 pose of observing the road, were the three little towns perched on 
 the rock, and shining like silver, Cora, Norma, and Sermoneta, 
 which had so much attracted my admiration when I was at Appii 
 
 Q
 
 216 ITALIAN BANDITTI— GASPARONL LEt. ilj. 
 
 Forum. He told me that he Lad spent a large proportion of his 
 plunder upon spies at Rome, by whom he was made acquainted with 
 the plans designed for his capture, and who also told him what per- 
 sons coming along the road were worth catching ; if emissaries were 
 sent for the purpose of entrapping him, he was forewarned, and the 
 vengeance he took on them was terrible. He crucified one of these 
 men, and wrote underneath, ' Thus Gasparoni treats all spies.' He 
 cut out the heart and liver of another, and sent them back to the 
 man's widow. 
 
 " If any persons in the towns were active against him, he always 
 found means to punish them. If their offence was not very deep, 
 they received a letter ordering them to pay, on a certain day, at a 
 certain place, one thousand or two thousand scudi ; and such was 
 the terror of his name, that these demands were generally obeyed. 
 Some of the magistrates in the strong town of Terracina, thinking 
 themselves secure witliin their walls, ventured to incur his displea- 
 sure. Soon after, the boys of the chief school, while taking a walk 
 near the gates, were surprised by him and his men, and carried 
 away to the mountains ; and a message was sent to the parents of 
 almost all, fixing the amount of ransom, upon the payment of wliicli 
 they were restored. But the children of those who had exasperated 
 him were not allowed to escape ; their heads were sent back in a 
 sack. Of the truth of this dreadful story there can be no doubt. A 
 friend of mine asked Gasparoni about it ; he admitted that he had 
 seized the children, but said nothing about the murders. The gentle- 
 man said to him, ' I have heard more than this ; I have been told 
 you cut off the heads of three of them.' ' It is false,' said Gaspa- 
 roni; ' it was but two.' 
 
 " Mr Jones, the banker here, told me that last October he saw a man 
 who had been one of this party of boys, and who described to him 
 the whole scene of their capture, and of their residence in a cavern 
 among the mountains. This man actually saw Gasparoni plunge 
 his knife into the body of his two victims. Mr Jones also told us 
 that he had travelled through the country where Gasparoni and his 
 men used to hide themselves ; but such was still the terror of his 
 name, and the painful associations connected with it, that he could 
 not get respectable persons to speak on the subject, nor could he 
 jtrevail upon any one to be his guide to their cavern. The pei-son, 
 who, wlicn a boj', had been carried to the moimtains, was the most 
 communicative. As Mr Jones was walking with him on a little ter- 
 race adjacent to the walls of Terracina, he stopped at the corner of 
 a wall, and said, ' Such a one, an ofliccr of the town, had rambled 
 thus far at midday ; Gasparoni, sprang out of that hedge, struck 
 Lim with his knife, and here he fell dead.' 
 
 " You nuist know that Gasparoni, according to his own account, 
 was esjiecially merciful. Ho protested that he had never murdered 
 Tiicrcly fr<iiii the Invc of blood ; but lie seemed to think there was no 
 liarni in killing, and admitted tliat he had killed many who came as 
 Kpicfl to entrap liim, or who ])resimicd to make resistance. Rumour 
 hays, however, that lie was by no iiieans so squpamish. A friend of 
 mine came up to a diligence which had just boon plundered, and
 
 1S40.] GA3PAR0NI. 217 
 
 found tliat the whole party, including several priests, had all been 
 wounded, although none of them mortally. They said that the first 
 intimation they had of their danger was a volley from the whole 
 gang, and my friend took out of the lining of the carriage a whole 
 handful of shot of all sizes. 
 
 " It is odd enough that Gasparoni is very religious now ; he fasts 
 not only on Friday, but adds a supererogatory Saturday. He told 
 me that he repented of his former Ufe ; but what it was he regret- 
 ted I could not well make out, for he expressly justified the occa- 
 sions on which he had proceeded to extremities with spies or travel- 
 lers who resisted him. But, curious as his theology now is, it is 
 still more strange that, according to his own account, he was always 
 a very religious man. I asked him whether he had fasted when he 
 was a bandit. He said •' Yes.' ' ^^^ly did you fast ? ' said I. 'Perche 
 sono della religlone dclla Madonna.' 'Which did you think was 
 worst, eating meat on a Friday or killing a man?' He answered 
 witliout hesitation, ' In my case it was a crime not to fast, it was 
 no crime to kill those who came to betray me.' With all his pre- 
 sent religion, however, he told the mayor of the town the other day, 
 that if he got loose the first thing he would do would be to cut the 
 throats of all the priests ; and the mayor said in this he perfectly 
 believed him, and if he were now to break out he would be ten 
 times worse than ever. One fact, however, shews some degree of 
 scrupulosity. The people of the coimtry bear testimony that he 
 never committed murder on a Friday ! 
 
 " The mayor said the only good thing he ever knew him really 
 do, was this : he took an Aiistrian officer and his newly married 
 bride and carried them up to the hiUs. His gang stripped her of 
 all her clothes and proposed to kill her, but this he resisted, and 
 ultimately sent her and her husband back in safety. It is some 
 deduction from his humanity on this occasion to hear, as I did from 
 another quarter, that the Austrian general, hearing of the capture, 
 sent word to Gasparoni that if any injury was done to his officer, or 
 if he was not directly restored, he would send four thousand men 
 against him, who should be quartered in the village, and on his 
 friends, till he should be taken. 
 
 " Gasparoni told me that he had never taken an Englishman to 
 the mountains. I asked him why, rather expecting that he would 
 reply with some gross flummery, but he answered very simply, 
 ' LJecause I never had the luck to catch one ! ' He assured me that 
 he had not in all taken above fifteen or twenty persons to the hills ; 
 but the current report makes the number upwards of two hundred. 
 From these he was inexorable in extorting the precise sum that he 
 fixed upon as their ransom. It is well known that he obtained from a 
 Neapolitan nobleman, who is still living, 4000 scudi. The mayor 
 told me that an intimate friend of his was captured by him, and the 
 sum demanded was his weight in silver ; his friends being unable 
 to pay this, at the end of a fortnight received his head neatly packed 
 up in a basket ! All, however, who did return, bear testimony to 
 their good fare, and to his good humour ; and his courtly and some- 
 what delicate conduct, while they were his guests in the cavern.
 
 218 CAPTURE OF GASPAROXI. [JEt. 54. 
 
 "One incident which was related to me is in part attested by- 
 many living witnesses. A wedding was celebrated in a part of the 
 country at some distance from his haunt. When dinner was placed 
 on the table, a man, fully armed, but unknown to the guests, stalked 
 in, and seated himself by the side of the bride, with a kind of trum- 
 pet between his knees. The guests, somewhat startled, shewed little 
 disposition to eat ; and the bridegroom told the intruder that ' it 
 was not usual for a stranger to take the post he occupied.' He 
 replied, ' I am no stranger, I am Gasparoni. I am a friend to the 
 bride ; eat, and be at your ease, or you will make me her enemy.' 
 It is said his terrible name rather quenched the merriment and 
 appetite of the party. At length Gasparoni soimded his horn ; two 
 troops came rushing down the hill, and seized the bride, Gasparoni 
 saying, ' I ' told you I was her friend, and I shew it by taking her 
 away with me.' It would be well if the story stopped here, but it 
 is said that she was afterwards murdered. 
 
 " You will wish to know how he was taken. He became such a 
 nuisance, that partly from the strength of the military parties, which 
 were constantly sent in pursuit of him, and partly from the diminu- 
 tion of traffic on the road, his funds became short, and he could not 
 pay his spies. The Government then took the decisive measure of 
 seizing all his relations and friends, and those who supplied him 
 with food and ammunition ; in other words, the whole population of 
 Sonnino. Without money, and half-starved, unable to obtain intel- 
 ligence, and surrounded on all sides by troops, he was on the point 
 of being captured, when he listened to the proposals of a priest, who, 
 as it is said, went beyond the authority given him, and offered him 
 a full pardon and a pension ; upon which he and his comrades sur- 
 rendered ; and hence it was that I had the opportunity of seeing 
 him, surrounded by twenty-one ruffians, the remainder of his band. 
 I asked him which of them was the man he chiefly trusted; in other 
 words, who was his lieutenant ; he answered, ' My gun was my only 
 lieutenant; that never failed to obey me.' 
 
 " i le complains loudly of the violation of the promise made to 
 hlni, and still seems to dream of being liberated. He was the son 
 of a herdsman, and cannot read or write; but his little demon-like 
 e.\ecutiouer, who stood by his side, is said to be a tolerable scholai'. 
 Ho amuses himself by making caps, of which I bought three. I 
 have hardly done ju.stico to his appearance : he is greatly superior 
 in this respect to those around him. Ho has the air of a chieftain, 
 and, though his look is very commanding, there is something far 
 from unpleasing in his face ; it is decidedly handsome in features, 
 but the expression also is gentle and intellectual. While speaking 
 with me he looked mo full in the face the whole time. I told him 
 tliat I intended to have his likeness taken for a particular jjurpose, 
 (if which you sliall know more anotlior time. He said he had no 
 ulij('ction. I told him that the ])ainter would not be able to come 
 for some time. ' iN'o matter,' said he, 'let him suit himself, he will 
 always find mo at homo.' 
 
 " It is (piito aHtonishing how much terror was attached to his 
 name. One proof of its surviving, oven to this time, I witnessei
 
 1840.] ROBBER STORIES. 219 
 
 when I was shooting at Appii Forum ; for at the distance of every 
 three or four miles on the road there were military stations or huts, 
 in some of which they still keep soldiers. 
 
 " By this time, I think, you must be pretty sick of robber stories. 
 But I mvist inflict on you one more. 
 
 " Aji Englishman arrived here this year, who could scarcely speak 
 a word of Italian. He heard, of course, not a little about assassins, 
 robbers, and such like, and prudently resolved never to go alone, and 
 never to be out after dusk. Both these resolutions were fated to 
 fail. He dined with a friend near Rome, and was obliged to walk 
 liome alone the same night ; this looked terrific before dinner ; but 
 a few glasses of Marsala, and a few more of Champagne, braced up 
 his courage, and awaj- he started, about ten o'clock. As he walked 
 liriskly along in the darkness, he came full butt against a man. 
 He was startled, and the tales he had heard recurred to his recol- 
 lection ; but the man passed on, and in a short time our hero felt 
 for his watch, and found that it was gone. Then the good wine 
 came into play : he rushed back, seized the rascal, and vehemently 
 demanded 'Montre! Montre ! ' The robber trembled, and reluc- 
 tantly yielded up the watch. 
 
 " On reaching home he recounted, with no little exultation, hia 
 heroic exploit, and vowed that, if the rest of the world would behave 
 as he had done, robbery would cease in Rome in a fortnight. When 
 he had finished his oration, his sister said, 'All this is very strange ; 
 for after you went out I saw your watch hanging in your room, and 
 there it is now.' Sure enough there it was. So it appeared, past 
 all dispute, that, instead of being robbed, he had himself committed 
 a robbery ! " 
 
 TO EDWARD N. BUXTON, ESQ. 
 
 " March 9. 
 
 " I do not recollect that I ever read a paper which gave me more 
 thorough satisfaction than Lord John's letter about the slave 
 trade. 
 
 " The project of overturning the slave trade by civilisation, Chris- 
 tianity, and the cultivation of the soil, is no longer in my hands : 
 the Government have adopted the principle, and taken the task upon 
 themselves ; and if it fail for want of energetic working, they are to 
 blame. In short, I feel much more a gentleman at large than I did 
 before I read that letter. 
 
 " To-day I have been in the house of the heir of the Coesars and 
 the successor of St Peter. The Pope is a civil, lively little gentle- 
 man. Our party consisted of the Hanoverian Ambassador, Baron 
 Kestner ; a Danish Count just returned from the Holy Land ; an 
 English officer; Richards, in Kestner's court dress; Fowell, Charles, 
 and myself. He gave us an audience of upwards of three quarters 
 of an hour. 
 
 " He was very inquisitive to know what I thought of the Roman 
 prisons. Kestner (who understands neither English nor Italian) in- 
 terpreted for us, and I heard him say for me rather more than I 
 liked, of ' contentissimo.' This was not exactly what I wanted to 
 express; so I referred to Richards, and desired him to speak fur me.
 
 i 20 INTERVIEW WITH THE POPE. [^t. 54. 
 
 I praised everytliing I could think of, wMcli deserved commenda- 
 t ion ; such as the Chancellor of the Jails (Signer Neri), the Boys' 
 Prison, the San Michele Hospital, and the liberality of the Govern- 
 ment in giving me free access and full information ; to all of which 
 he very gracefully replied, that if gentlemen from motives of bene- 
 volence took the trouble to visit their institxitions, the least he could 
 do was to afford facilities, furnish documents, and listen attentively 
 to every suggestion. 
 
 " Well, having praised wherever I could, I gently intimated that 
 the Roman gaols, in general, wanted a good deal of purification ; and 
 that I felt bound in honesty to tell him that two, namely, the fe- 
 male prison of San Michele, and the great gaol of Civita Vecchia, 
 Avere to the last degree bad; and called aloud on those who are in- 
 fluenced, whether by policy, humanity, or religion, for a thorough 
 reformation. To all this he seemed very attentive and well dis- 
 posed. W^e then had a long conversation about the slave trade and 
 slavery. He seemed not a little proud of what he had done, and I 
 told him of the satisfaction which his bull had given in England, 
 on the score of the slave trade, at which it was pointed ; and also 
 with reference to slavery and the mal-treatment of aborigines, which 
 it indirectly hit. He called the slave trade an infamous traffic, said 
 that charity was the soul of religion, and that, whilst forbidding all 
 cruelty, it expressly prohibited that which was inflicted on the hu- 
 man race ; and he concluded with saying, and laughing loud at his 
 own speech, ' Thanks to me, if you please : but no thanks to Portu- 
 gal.' In short, he expressed himself capitally. Having disposed of 
 my own two pets, prisons and slave trade, I felt constrained to put 
 in a word relative to some atrociously cruel practices here, in the 
 treatment of lambs by the butchers. He hardly seemed ripe for 
 this ; but Richards stxick to it manfully : and the matter ended by 
 
 my giving him A 's paper on the subject, and his promising to 
 
 give it his best consideration.* 
 
 " Thus, very amicably, ended our interview." 
 
 " March IQ. 
 
 " I have been employed of late in preparing my report about the 
 jirisons for the Pope, and in having it translated into Italian. To- 
 morrow morning, Lord Meath, Lord I)e !Mauley, and two or three 
 other.-5, meet here to have it read to them, and I hope to get it com- 
 jdeted and presented before I go to Naples. 
 
 "Trew tells me tliat tlie book is publihhod; and I have seen it 
 advertised in the newspapers. If you wish to know what feeling in 
 our minds this intelligence has called forth, turn to the 90th Psalm, 
 17th verse, I'raycr-Book version. f If it were not that wo have good 
 
 * Some moiitlis afterwards, MrRux- benefactress of lambs. What a thins: 
 
 Ion licavd that liis ruprescntatioiiH on it is to have rescued such a niultiludo 
 
 this svibj'Cthad liocn uttendid to. Ho from torluro 1 I do bcliovo there is 
 
 wrote to Mi.ss Otinioy, throiiKh whom much fjood in Pope Oiogory, after all ; 
 
 the iiewH readied liim, " I must tliaiik it is capital when pri-cat people will rc- 
 
 you for your letter about tlio I'opo and 8i)ond to good advice;." 
 tlio lamliH; it reidly was an acliieve- f "Prosper thou the work of our 
 
 incut. I never Kuc one (.'alln|iini^al)out hands upon us, O prosper thou our 
 
 u field ni'W, without thinking of the l.andywoik."
 
 1840.] JOURNEY TO NAPLES. 221 
 
 reason for assuring ourselves of His aid who can make all things 
 bend to His will, we should think any hope for Africa, after so many 
 centuries of such deep debasement, chimerical in the last degree. 
 As it is, we are in right good heart, and feel that, however the in- 
 struments may err or fail, the great Actor and Leader will give the 
 victory to His own work " 
 
 TO EDWARD N. BUXTON, ESQ. 
 
 " MoLA Di Gaeta, one day's journey from Naples, 
 April, 10, 1840. 
 
 '■' I wrote to you last on the 1st of April, in the worst of my illness. 
 We left Eome as soon as I was able to move. I suifered not a little 
 from exhaustion in going up stairs at Albano, but I have been im- 
 proving ever since, and am now nearly as well as ever 
 
 " My illness alone has prevented us from paying a visit to Son- 
 nino, the town of robbers. As you enter it, I ♦am told, you see the 
 prison ornamented with fourteen cages, containing the heads of so 
 many bandits ; if you go into the streets and speak to three men, 
 the cliance is that one out of the number has been upon the hills, 
 and that two out of the three are of the lineage of some predatory 
 hero. It is, however, not easy to get at information ; the Govern- 
 ment cannot bear the subject to be mentioned; the guilty, there- 
 fore, who have been conditionally pardoned, dare not speak, and the 
 others who were their prey, have too many painful associations to 
 make the subject agreeable. Two Englishmen who have travelled 
 there tell me that if you ask a question of any respectable person on 
 these dark transactions, he usually utters not a word in reply, or il 
 he says anything, it is something like this, — ' Every stone hereabouts 
 has its own bloody tale to teU.' " 
 
 " Naples, April 13. Monday. 
 
 " We reached this place on Saturday night, and our terrors of 
 bombardment, for some of our party did tremble, have subsided. 
 Our fleet just poked its nose into the Bay on Sunday morning, but 
 sailed away to Salerno, a port some ten miles distant, where it waits, 
 I suppose, the turn which negotiations may take. I have seen our 
 minister, Mr Temple, and he gave me to understand that we may 
 safely remain till he throws out a hint to the contrary. Nothing 
 can be more lovely than this day ; my window looks towards the 
 bay, and it glitters so as quite to dazzle me. Beautiful as it is, it is 
 
 singularly like Weymouth Instead of finishing my letter to 
 
 you this morning, I was tempted by good company and fine weather 
 to look about me ; and first, after a passing glance at Vesuvius, 
 which was unusually clear, we went to the Museum, and saw all 
 the curious things collected from Pompeii and Herculaneum. There 
 was the service of plate, which some active butler had spread out 
 for an intended dinner, eighteen hundred years ago ; the loaf which 
 that day was to have been cut, the store of eggs and of chestnuts 
 which were dressed somewhat sooner than was designed. Then 
 there was Mrs Diomed's garment, at least a piece of it; the orna- 
 ments that were found upon her head, the ring on her finger, and 
 the key which her hand still kept hold of ; there was the helmet of
 
 222 POMPEII. [^T. 54. 
 
 the faithful sentinel who was found at his post, and the iron to which 
 the legs of three prisoners were still fixed ; there were the appur- 
 tenances which belonged to a very fine lady, rouge among the rest. 
 But it is difiicult to say what there was not. It is strange to see that 
 the world wanted and possessed in those days almost everything to 
 which we now attach value." 
 
 " Wednesday , April 15. 
 Eight o'clock in the evening. 
 " We started soon after eight this morning for Pompeii. It is 
 most curious to be thus, in 1840, walking about a town which in 
 many respects is as fresh and as perfect as it was on the 23d August, 
 A.D. 79. There were the streets with their ancient names, and the 
 ruts worn by the carriages. At No. 1 Via Consi.ilaris, lived the 
 ^Edile Pansa with his name over the door, and just within it was 
 found the skeleton of his porter. At No. 2 resided a poet, who, xm- 
 like his fraternity, appears to have been very wealthy. The house, 
 though not large, was very elegant. Among his pictures was a 
 beautiful and very well preserved one, of Venus and Cupid fishing. 
 On his table were fish, bread, and olives. In his kitchen were found 
 the bones of two of his cooks, with many less important articles of 
 kitchen furniture. In another apartment, stretched on a bed, the 
 left arm holding up the head, was found another body. In another 
 house there was a table spread with five knives, and there were the 
 skeletons of six men who seemed to have been surj^rised while J:hey 
 were making themselves comfortable ; for on the table before them 
 were eggs and ham, fish, figs, &c. At No. 6 resided the baker, and 
 there were his grinding stones and his oven, in which there was still 
 some bread. Not far off lived a musical gentleman, and many in- 
 struments of music were found in his house. In one room there 
 were nine bodies, three of tliem with flageolets in their hands. Sal- 
 lust's house in the same street was very elegantly furnished, and 
 there we got a very good conception of the way in which he used to 
 dine. At one end of the building there was a good painting, of win- 
 dows, sky, and country. It appears that Mrs Diomod had taken re- 
 fuge in the cellar, her husband was making his escape at the back of 
 the house, and was there found standing upright. The statue of the 
 Faun, which is nuicli celebrated, was foiuid in the centre of the gar- 
 den of Marcus Tullius, round which there were the remnants of forty- 
 four great pillars; he seemed to have lived well through the year, 
 for tlierc was a great number of large wine-jars, {amphord' ,) which 
 were turned bottom upwanls, shewing they had been recently emp- 
 tied ; there were several beautiful mosaic pictTu-es, one of the Nile. 
 with its animals and birds, sea-horses, alligators, snakes, and .shoveller 
 ducks, which last the boys thought admirably executed. There 
 was also a very fine mosaic of Alexander and Darius, In a small 
 room were found tlu; remains of the wliolo family, at least twenty- 
 four bodies of men, women, and children, also a silver candelabrum, 
 and a good deal of money. In the adjacent Temple of Fortune we 
 were struck with the brilliant wiiitoness of the marble, and we no- 
 ticed lialf a Hcjuaro of very thick gl iss in an aperture between two 
 apartments. The l-'orum was splendid. IL was vciy extunsive, and
 
 1840.] pompe;:. 223 
 
 gave us a good notion of the various purposes to which it was turned 
 — a Senate House in one place ; a Temple of Jupiter, if I recollect 
 right, in another ; the spots where they made speeches and measured 
 corn ; an exchange, &c., &c. 
 
 " But such a beautiful scene as there was before us — to the left, 
 and immediately opposite to us, a hue of hills ; to the right, the sea 
 with Castel-a-mare, and on its shores several white towns, with the 
 Island of Capri, and the promontory of Minerva in the distance. 
 Certainly this region is eminently beavitiful. One of their national 
 jjroverbs says, that Naples is a piece of heaven which has tumbled 
 down upon earth. 
 
 " We had intended to dine in the Forum, but by mistake our 
 dinner was laid out in a kind of barn-looking room at some little 
 distance from it. To say nothing of our food, which, however, was 
 very acceptable, we were highly amused by the whole scene. We 
 had plenty of native waiters, but I do not think they mustered a 
 single stocking among them. A musician made his appearance, who 
 first played on a cracked instrument, and then sung a variety of fine 
 Italian airs in very good style. Then he set two men and a boy 
 figuring away in a dance, somewhat hke an Irish jig; and finally 
 renouncing his instrument, set to work dancing himself to the music 
 of his own voice. The bard, however, like Walter Scott's, gave 
 \is to understand that the higher efforts of his art required the in- 
 spiration of a tumbler of wine. We afterwards saw the Temple of 
 Isis. The worshippers stood below, the oracles were delivered from 
 above, and we sav/ clearly the aperture by which the priest obtained 
 admittance behind the altar, and spoke for the goddess when she 
 happened to be in a silent mood. The guide assured us that he had 
 tried the experiment, and the people below supposed that the voice 
 really came from above. It seems that the priests made a good 
 thing of it ; for some money and wine were foiuid and the skeleton 
 of a man with an iron bar in his hand, with which he had endea- 
 voured to break through the wall. 
 
 " We afterwards saw at some distance a beautiful theatre, as per- 
 fect, I should think, as it was at the moment of the eruption. Also 
 an immense amphitheatre in an equal state of preservation ; so that 
 we have the clearest conception of the stage on which the captives 
 .nnd Christians fought with wild beasts, and of the oi-der in which 
 the gentle folks of Pompeii sat while they were amusing themselves 
 with this delicious spectacle. But it began to grow cold; so my 
 wife and I returned home in our carriage, and I gladly leave it to 
 others to supply you with further information." 
 
 At the end of April he was compelled to hasten to Eng- 
 land on account of the African business, leaving the rest of 
 the party to follow him. 
 
 TO MISS GtTRNEY, AT ATHENS. 
 
 " FoNTAiNEBLEAU, Sunday, May 10. 
 " If an angel were to offer to tell me at this moment any earthly 
 news, the question I should ask hitn would be, 'How fares it with
 
 224 JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE. [^t. 54. 
 
 our Athenians ? Has the time gone merrily with them ? Are they 
 eafe and sound, satisfied and happy ? And are they now sitting on 
 Mars' Hill, reading, as we have done to-day, the 17th chapter of Acts?' 
 What a curious scene that was, and how the Stoics would have won- 
 dered, had they been told by an oracle that the barbarian babbler 
 before them would be more renowned at the end of two thousand 
 years than Theseus or Themistocles ! and that in a little bit of an 
 island, which they had never heard of, the time would come when 
 his description of them — their scorn — ■ their avidity for news — ■ 
 would be copied off at the rate of one a minute ! 
 
 " Well, I can truly say I have eagerly watched you, thought of 
 you, and sailed with you ; and my first inquiry every morning has 
 been — ' Is the day fine for our Attic party?' Alas! the answer has 
 not always been gladdening. Our days have been alternately wet 
 and dry, never very fine, sometimes excessively wet ; so I fear for 
 you. Surely I shall find a line from you at Paris to-morrow. 'At 
 Paris to-morrow ! ' you will say ; 'why, how you must have raced ! ' 
 Nay, we have travelled very slowly ; up betimes in the morning, 
 always housed before eight in the evening, and yet here we are, not- 
 withstanding we lost half a day for want of horses, half a day by 
 breaking our springs, and half a day by our wish to see the city of 
 Lyons. 
 
 " Our journey, which cost so many sighs before we started, has 
 been nothing else but pleasure. Gurney Barclay has been a capital 
 companion. He is always gay and cheerful ; humours me in the 
 choice of rooms and dishes ; does all the work ; reads in the Bible 
 to me the first stage ; talks when I want a chat, and holds his tongue 
 or goes ovit a stage or two when I want to meditate ; or reads Byron 
 to me when I am tired of my own employments. I suppose you 
 have read the " Giaour" and the " Corsair? " They have furnished me 
 with charming ideas of Grecian scenery. In our voyage to Mar- 
 seilles, I saw the sun rise out of the sea, and he did, indeed, come 
 forth ' as a bridegroom out of his chamber.' I had been reading 
 Byron the evening before, with, I confess, unexpected admiration, 
 — but sitting uj^on the deck that morning, and reading the 19th 
 Psalm as the sun began to pee[) over the waves, I thought that David 
 was the greater poet of the two. The verses of Byron's I had been 
 reading, as we floated by the hills between Genoa and Marseilles, 
 were those beginning — 
 
 ' Slow .sinks, more lovoly ere his race bo run, 
 iichind Moi-Oii's hills the .setting sini ; 
 >'ot as ill northern climes, obscuiely bright, 
 But nnc nnolondod bl.-ize of livinix lif^ht, 
 O'er the hushed deep tlio yellow beam lie throws, 
 Gild.s tlio groon wave that trembles as it glows,' <fcc. 
 
 " They are charming, as much for their fidelity as for their poetry, 
 but Byron never jiloiighcd through a perfectly calm sea at the rate 
 (if nine knots an hour; if he had, ho could not but have described 
 tlio velvet waves, as tliey were turned up by tho steamer, without 
 breaking. I never saw anything so lovely. 
 
 " But now to answer your questions. Yes, I am well, famously 
 well, no headache, no cough, no cramp, 7io nolhuKj. I am in capital
 
 1840.] RETURN TO ENGLAND. 225 
 
 spirits, hoping that I am going to see my ' children's children, and 
 peace upon Africa.' 
 
 " The roads, to my surprise, have been very good, and the country 
 all the way from Marseilles very pretty. I wish my wife would re- 
 turn by it ; it would be so safe for her monster of a carriage. She 
 saw it when the trees were in the sear and yellow leaf ; but now, 
 the olives first, then the walnuts, last of all, the forest trees, are in 
 full foliage, and give one quite a new idea of France." 
 
 The last in the series of Mr Buxton's letters is dated 
 from Havi'e de Grace : — 
 
 "May 15, 1840. 
 
 " My Dear A. & C, — We are going to start to-night for England. 
 The wind is fair, the sea smooth, and we hope to breakfast to-morrow 
 at Southampton. I was exceedingly amused with your letters from 
 Ancona ; I know you put in all that Greek to puzzle me, but there 
 you were mistaken, for I made it all out. While I was at Paris 
 Madame Pelet was most kind to me, and introduced me to many per- 
 sons whom I wished to see, and especially to some good abolition- 
 ists. I called on M. de St Antoine, and was much pleased with his 
 heartiness. I think he is more likely to be useful than any of them ; 
 he has so much heart in the work. It was, I think, this day seven- 
 teen years ago that I first brought forward the slavery question, and 
 on Wednesday thirty-three years I was married ; the two chief 
 events of my life." 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIL 
 He arrived in England in tolerable health, and full of im- 
 patience to carry out his plans for the suppression of the 
 slave trade, by the establishment of lawful commerce in 
 Africa. To these he at once devoted himself, with all the 
 ardour that might be expected after the period of relaxa- 
 tion he had enjoyed. In order to bring the whole case effec- 
 tually before the public, a meeting was held on the 1st of 
 June ; at which, to the high gratification of the African 
 Society, H.R.H. Prince Albert consented to preside. The 
 meeting took place in Exeter Hall, and formed, say the 
 contemporary papers, " a most grand and magnificent dis- 
 2)lay of national feeling." 
 
 After an address from Prince Albert, Mr Buxton moved 
 the first resolution, concluding with these words : — 
 
 " I do not forget the military triumphs which this country has 
 achieved ; but there is a road to glory more noble, more illustrious, 
 purer, and grander than the battles of Waterloo and Trafalgar ; — to 
 arrest the destruction of mankind; to pour a blessing upon a con- 
 tinent in ruins ; to send civilisation aud the mild truths of the 
 gospel over a region, in comparison with which Britain herself is
 
 226 THE NIGER EXPEDITION. [^t. 54. 
 
 but a speck upon the ocean ; — this is the road to tnie and endur- 
 ing renown : and the desire and prayer of my heart is that her 
 Majesty may tread it ; and that, crowned with every other blessing, 
 she may 
 
 ' Shine the leader of applauding nations, 
 To scatter happiness and peace around her, 
 To bid the prostrate captive rise and hve, 
 To see new cities tower at her command, 
 And blasted nations flourish in her smile.' " 
 
 Shortly afterwards, it was intimated to Mr Buxton, by 
 Lord John Russell, that it was proposed to confer the rank 
 of Baronet upon him. Having ascertained that the idea 
 had not been suggested to the Government by any of his 
 friends, but was a spontaneous mark of their approbation 
 of his conduct, he accepted the title with gratification. 
 
 The summer was spent in active preparation for the 
 Niger Expedition, for the service of which three iron 
 steamers, the Albert, the Wilberforce, and Soudan, were 
 fitted out ; and to the great satisfaction of all who were 
 interested in the subject, the command was given to Cap- 
 tain Henry Dundas Trotter ; Commander William Allen 
 was appointed to the Wilberforce, and Commander Bird 
 Allen to the Soudan. These gentlemen and Mr William 
 Cook* were the four commissioners empowered to make 
 treaties with the native chiefs for the abolition of the slave 
 trade. 
 
 The African Civilisation Society engaged several scientific 
 gentlemen to accompany the expedition ; Dr Vogel as bot- 
 anist, Mr Roscher as mineralogist and miner, Dr Stanger as 
 geologist, and Mr Fraser, Curator of the Zoological Societj'' 
 of London, as naturalist. Mr Uwins a draughtsman, and 
 Mr Anscll a practical gardener or seedsman, were also 
 appointed ; and the Church ]\Iissionary Society was allowed 
 to send the Rov. Frederick Schon and !Mr Samuel Crow- 
 tliert to examine into the practicability of establishing 
 missions on the banks of the Niger. 
 
 The object of the expedition Avas to explore that great 
 artery of Western Africa, the river Niger ; to examine the 
 capabilities of tlic country along its banks ; to enter into 
 treaties with the native chiefs for the abolition of the slave 
 
 * Well known ns the fjijitain of tho African Nofri'o) having boon ordained 
 
 Cimilirid, whicli H.avcd the crow of tho by the liisliop of London, is now zcal- 
 
 Jiail, ICant Indianian. <iu.sly labouring as a missionary at 
 
 t Tho licv. 8. CrowUicr (who is an Abcukouta.
 
 ISiO, 1841.] OBJECTS OF THE EXPEDITION. 227 
 
 trade ; to clear tlie road for commercial enterprise, and 
 to aflford that enterprise the security wliicb. alone seemed 
 necessary for its development. 
 
 Sir Fowell Buxton and his friends were also extremely 
 anxious that this opjjortunity should not be lost, of putting 
 the natives in the way of cultivating the soil, and dra^ving 
 forth its varied and immense resources. 
 
 TO SIR THOKAS DTKE ACKLAND, BART. 
 
 "August, 1840. 
 " This consideration has presented itself to me with great force — 
 we never shall have again so favourable an opportunity for making 
 an experiment in agriculture. The few people whom we shall send 
 will go out under the escort and protection of the vessels. They 
 will be carried through the mangroves and miasma of the delta by 
 steam ; they will have the medical help of at least eight surgeons or 
 physicians ; above all, they will have the sound and cool judgment 
 of Captain Trotter to restrain them from settling, unless the circum- 
 stances of climate, soil, and disi^ositiou of the natives should be very 
 favourable. If, then, we are ever to make the attempt, why lose 
 such an opportunity ? Our intention is to make a mere commence- 
 ment, on a most moderate scale. If it answer, we shall enlarge our 
 operations hereafter, and we shall have something practical and 
 positive to lay before the public." 
 
 It was at length resolved to adopt this agricultural experi- 
 ment, and £4000 were subsciibed for the purpose. Re- 
 ferring to this plan for a model farm. Sir Fowell says, 
 in a letter addressed to Miss Gurney, on the 6th of De- 
 cember — 
 
 " I cannot conclude these particulars about Africa without telling 
 you of a text which has been cheering me up all day ; ' There shall 
 be showers of blessing, and the tree of the field shaft yield her fruit, 
 and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their 
 land, and shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the 
 bauds of their yoke, and deUvered them out of the hand of thosa 
 that served themselves of them." (Ezekiel xxxiv. 2G-28.) 
 
 The severe attacks made upon his plans by some of the 
 leading journals, gave liim much pain ; " But," he tells Mrs 
 Johnston, " I cannot help remembering, when I feel the 
 breezes that blow upon us now, what the gales were in 
 1825 and 1826, when our anti-slavery bark put to sea. 
 That cause was indeed cradled in a hurricane, and yet how 
 safely is it havened ! " 
 
 Throughout his correspondence, innumerable passages 
 occur which shew his extreme anxiety for the safety of
 
 228 PLAN FOR A MODEL FARM. [iEr. 54. 
 
 those who were voluntarily about to encounter so dangerous 
 a climate. He says, in a letter to Captain Washington — 
 
 " Ti'otter tells me that tlie expense of the ventilation already 
 exceeds the estimate by £1400, and that p. further expense of £500 
 is still required, which he will not proceeii to incur till he has the 
 authority of the Government. Now, I am as clear as daylight about 
 two points : first, that the Government ought to pay this ; and 
 secondly, that if they will not, we must ; and that, therefore, it 
 ought to be so proceeded with, as not to delay the departure of the 
 expedition. As far as I am concerned, I give my hearty concurrence, 
 and will take my full share of the responsibility." 
 
 To Mr Samuel Gurney, after requesting him to attend a 
 meeting of the Agricultural Committee, and pay in a sub- 
 scription for him : — 
 
 " I leave it to you to put down my name for the sum you think 
 right. To tell you the truth, I had thought of being very mean in 
 my subscription. In one way or another Africa has cost me a good 
 round sum, and on this ground I thought myself justified in sub- 
 scribing only £1000 ; but if you think that the smallness of this will 
 discourage other people and do mischief, put me down for two, or 
 three, or four thousand. I am very glad to think that Africa has a 
 friend like you, more able, and more willing to give." 
 
 On the 7 th of August, Dr Lushington and Sir Fowell 
 Buxton addressed a letter to Lord John Russell, settiug 
 forth the importance of establishing the model farm. Afttr 
 this, he was constrained to go into the country for the re- 
 establishment of his health. " To tell you the truth," he 
 writes to Sir George Stephen, " I am dead beat ; I do 
 not recollect ever to have felt so languid and good for 
 nothing." 
 
 TO THE RIGHT HON. STEPHEN LUSHINGTON, D.C.L. 
 
 " My Dear Lushington, — Dr Farre has been pleased to write me 
 a letter, telling mo that I have just this alternative, viz., that it is 
 open to me now, cither to live or to die for Africa; but that if my 
 judgment bo in favour of the former mode of proceeding, I must 
 ' cut and run,' ' go to the country and aninialise.' This is curiously 
 in concurrence with what Dr Holland told me six months ago.* I 
 tliink I shall wud you these medical letters, for if there be anything 
 on earth which I mortally hate, it is the sense that I am skulking 
 away from the field of battle, while you, in spite of your ailnienls, 
 go on fighting manfully. Lut I really cannot help it ; there is not 
 a stroke of work left in my great carcase. I am like my old hoiso 
 John Bull ; ho does well enough for a lady to take a canter in the 
 
 * Dr Ilollancl, sonio tirno boforo, beyond tho power wliicli oven tlio 
 wroto to Mrs liuxton : — " Knim wlmt Rtmiijrcst natural coustitutiou can 
 1 Imvo seen, Mr liuxlon ia working give."
 
 1840.] CHARTIST INTERRUPTIOK 229 
 
 park, but give him a brusli along the road, or a burst across the 
 fields, and he is done up for a month. 
 
 " Now, what does all this tend to ? This, — that I must avail my- 
 self of your permission to leave town this week, subject to being 
 recalled by you on any great emergency, particularly with regard 
 either to treaties or instructions." 
 
 Private anxieties were now added to his public labours ; 
 but these occupied his thoughts far less than Africa ; he 
 thus writes from Bury, while on his way to London, in obe- 
 dience to a summons from Lord John Russell : — 
 
 "August 27, 1840. 
 
 " It will cheer you to hear that I am so far on my journey, safe 
 and sound, remarkably comfortable, and perfectly well into the bar- 
 gain What are mines, and miseries, and mail coaches, as 
 
 compared with the vision, aU sunshine, of a people, thousands and 
 himdreds of thousands, springing from bondage to liberty, from 
 stripes and howling to wages and singing, from being things to being 
 men, from blindness to the gospel ? . . . . 
 
 " I feel very thankful, and am a happy man this night." 
 
 Dr Lushington, however, and Sir George Murray at. 
 tended a meeting at Manchester. Another, at which many 
 of the nobility and gentry of Norfolk were present, was 
 held in St Andrew's Hall, Norwich, Mr Villebois, then 
 high sheriff of Norfolk, being in the chair ; but a large body 
 of Chartists broke into the hall, and after great uproar and 
 confusion compelled the meeting to disperse. It is to this 
 meeting that the following letter alludes : — 
 
 " My Dear Lushington, — What with the Chartists at Norwich, 
 and the newspapers, and the Review, and the bitter resolutions 
 of the Liverpool Anti-Slavery Society, and the recognition of Texas, 
 and the threatened admission of slave-grown sugar, clouds seem 
 to be gathering round about us. But I do not mean to allow 
 these things utterly to vex me. I am as sure as ever, that we 
 are upon the right tack, and, if so, we shall beat them all yet. 
 My chief anxiety is, that the instructions to the commissioners, and 
 the model treaty, should be finished in good style. I will be 
 with you at dinner on Wednesday, and we will talk over these 
 matters." 
 
 The motto of the Buxton family had been, " Whatever 
 thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." Of this 
 lengthy but appropriate sentence, he retained only the last 
 clause ; and " Do it with thy might " was the motto at- 
 tached to the arms which he bore as a baronet. " But I 
 do not think," he writes to a friend, " my motto and I 
 square well together now-a-days. I have no ' might,' nor'
 
 230 PRINCE ALBERT'S VISIT [Mr. 54. 
 
 energy, nor pluck, nor anything of that sort, and this kind 
 of listlessness reaches even to my two pet pursuits, negroes 
 and partridges. In short, I feel myself changed in almost 
 everything." 
 
 As the time for the departure of the vessels was now 
 drawing near, he became anxious that a day of prayer 
 should be appointed for the safety and success of an expe- 
 dition which would be exposed to so many dangers. " Pray 
 do not let us lose sight of this," he wi'ote to Mr Coates, 
 then one of the secretaries of the Church Missionary So- 
 ciety ; " never was there a case which more required the 
 Divine blessing." 
 
 He several times minutely inspected the vessels fitted out 
 for the expedition, which were then lying in the river ; 
 and he was one of the party which waited upon H. E.. H. 
 Prince Albert, when he visted them on the 23d of March. 
 
 TO MISS GURNET. 
 
 "Leamington, Aprill, 1841. 
 " Now I must tell you about Prince Albert's visit to the vessels. 
 I went an hour before he was expected, and found everj'thing in the 
 most perfect order, and the officers in full dress. Trotter looked 
 remarkably well in his uniform, and I was glad to have the oppor- 
 tunity of seeing him actually engaged in the command of his people. 
 At the appointed time, two carriages and four drove on to the quay, 
 containing Prince Albert, Mr Anson, Major Keppel (our late mem- 
 ber for Norfolk), and half-a-dozen others. I was upon the quarter- 
 deck, and Professor Airy with me, near the steps, which the Prince 
 immediately came up. He gi-eeted me with the most good-natured 
 familiarity, and expressed his pleasure at seemg me ' on board my 
 fleet.' He then closely examined everything, and seemed to take 
 gi-eat delight in the whole concern, and to understand mechanics. 
 He was especially delighted with a buoy, fixed ready at the stern of 
 the ship, to bo lot down at a moment's notice. It contained a light, 
 which (at least they said so) water only inflamed. This was for 
 the purpose of saving any one who might happen to fall overboard 
 at nigiit. I said to Keppel, not intending the Prince should hear 
 me, (which, liowever he did,) ' I wish his lloyal Highness would 
 order one of his suite, yourself, for example, to be thrown over- 
 board, that we might save your life by this ap]iaratus.' The Prince 
 took up tlio idea, and seemed half inclined to sot Keppel a swim- 
 ining, in order that we might have the gratification of the salvage. 
 After examining evorytliing in the 'Albert,' the boat came along- 
 side ; tiie Prince and si.v of his attendants got in, and I was also 
 invited, and was not very far from having reason to regret the 
 lionour. The wind was blowing hard, and the tide rolling along at 
 its full force. Our sailors were not accustomed to tho navigation of
 
 I 
 
 1841.] TO THE NIGER EXPEDITION. 231 
 
 the Thames, bo the tide ran away with ua, and dashed us with con- 
 siderable violence against a yacht at anchor, the 'William and Mary.' 
 We got entangled amongst the ropes attached to her anchor, and a 
 cry was raised from the vessels, ' You will be dragged over, lie 
 down ! ' Down went his Royal Highness flat to the bottom of the 
 boat, and without ceremony we all bundled down too. As it was, 
 the rope scraped along my back. When we got clear, the Prince 
 sprang up, laughing heartily at the adventure, saying ' I have had 
 one ducking before this year, when I fell through the ice, and I 
 thought we were going to have a second of a much worse kind.* 
 The alarm felt on board the vessels at our situation was very consi- 
 derable ; and Bird Allen had ordered his boats to be lowered. 
 
 " After visiting the two other vessels, the Prince took leave of 
 Trotter and the company, and expressed himself highly pleased with 
 what he had seen." 
 
 On the 14tli of April 1841, Captain Trotter and Com- 
 mander William Allen sailed for the Niger, with the Albert 
 and Wilberforce, the Soudan having put to sea a few weeks 
 earlier. It need not be said that this event was one full of 
 the deepest interest to Sir Fowell. His prayers were in- 
 deed fervent for the success of the expedition, and the wel- 
 fare of its gallant commanders and crews ; and, though 
 deeply impressed with the risks they were about to incur, 
 his unshaken confidence in the presence and providence of 
 God did not fail him now. The chief source of apprehen- 
 sion lay in the deadly climate ; but against its dangers 
 every human precaution had been taken. The ships were 
 to steam as rapidly as possible through the mouths of the 
 rivers, where the miasma chiefly prevails. Dr Reid had 
 invented a system of ventilation by which a constant current 
 of air, impregnated with chloride of lime, could, by the 
 agency of the steam engines, be maintained through all 
 parts of the vessels ; a large proportion of the crews were 
 natives of Africa, and the medical staff was remarkably able 
 and efficient. With these precautions, — the whole expe- 
 dition, also, being under the command of so able and judi- 
 cious a man, whose eminent qualifications had pointed him 
 out for this responsible office, — it was confidently hoped 
 that all the perils which, it was well known, were insepa- 
 rable from such an undertaking, might be passed through 
 with safety.
 
 232 THE NIGER EXPEDITION. [^t. 55. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Tidings of tlie Niger Expedition at length arrived; dated 
 " Aiigust 20, River Niger," and were of the most encour- 
 aging character. " With two exceptions," said Captain 
 Trotter, "the whole company is m good health." "This," 
 writes Sir Fowell, " I think highly satisfactory ; and may 
 God in His mercy grant that we may continue to hear 
 such favourable reports. I am, I confess, not devoid of 
 anxiety." 
 
 He thus replies to Captain Trotter's letter : — 
 
 "NoRTHREPPS Hall, November 12, 1841. 
 " I must write a few lines, if it be only to assure you that my 
 anxiety is unabated to hear tidings of the expedition, and more 
 especially to hear about yourself, Captains William and Bird Allen 
 and Cook. I was going to add Lieutenant Fishbourne ; but I may 
 as well say at once, all the officers and all the crews. I believe I 
 should hardly exaggerate if I should say that while engaged in our 
 famUy devotions I have never, or at all events most rarely, neglected 
 to offer up my prayers for the safety of you all, for the success of 
 the expedition, and for the outpouring of God's grace upon jVfrica. 
 I trust and I believe that I am but one of many thousands with whom 
 these things form a subject of daily and heartfelt prayer." 
 
 The Niger Expedition began to ascend the Nun branch 
 of the river on the 20th of August 1841. Every one was in 
 the highest spirits, cheered by the novelty and beauty of 
 the scenery, and by the exhilarating fcelmg of the air, which 
 appeared perfectly salubrious ; and it was difficult to ima- 
 gine that it could be otherwise. After Sunday Island, 
 where the influence of the tides gives place to the constant 
 downward current of the river, a marked change took place 
 in the scenery. The banks began to be slightly elevated 
 above the water, and, instead of the mangrove, a variety of 
 beautiful palms and other trees fi)rmed a forest so dense, 
 that, for upwards of a hundred miles (except where spots were 
 cleared for cultivation) the eye could not penetrate more 
 than a few yards beyond the Avater's edge. These cleared 
 spots, containing yams, cocoas, cassadas, Indian corn, plan- 
 tains, and occasionally sugar cane, began to appear imme- 
 diately after leaving Sunday Island, and gradually became 
 more frequent. Solitary huts were now succeeded by 
 clusters, and clusters of huts by villages, the villages be- 
 came larger and more populous; while the natives shewed
 
 1841.] SCENERY OF THE NIGER. 233 
 
 themselves less timid, and often came off in their canoes to 
 hold intercourse with the ships. Their timidity at first 
 had been great, but their disposition was invariably friendly. 
 For the first fifty miles there was little appearance of trade ; 
 but afterwards large canoes were seen carrying palm oil, 
 destined for Brass Town and Bonny. 
 
 As they proceeded, the amount of cultivation of yams, 
 bananas, and plantains indicated still more extensive habi- 
 tation. Some of the oflficers went into the country, and 
 were much pleased with its openness and beauty. Here 
 and there some nice plantations fenced in contained cas- 
 sada, yams, pompions, Indian corn, and sugar cane, all 
 kept clean, and in the best condition of culture. The 
 people were found to be industrious, and more advanced 
 in civilisation than their neighbours lower down the river : 
 their grounds much better cultivated, manufactures more 
 ncouraged, and their social comforts increasing. 
 
 " Up to this time (the conclusion of the treaty with the Attah of 
 Eggarah) the expedition," says Dr M'William, " had been fortu- 
 nate beyond all expectation. The Delta had been passed, and we 
 were entering the valley of the Niger, under circumstances seem- 
 ingly the most auspicious. The crews contemplated with delight 
 the novel and diversified scenery of the high land before them. 
 With such prospects, so favourable beyond all anticipation, it is not 
 to be wondered at if we indulged a rather sanguine hope that the 
 continuance of health would be granted to us, and that we should, 
 under Providence, thus be enabled to persevere in the great object 
 of our mission." 
 
 On the 4th of September, fever of a most malignant 
 character broke out in the Albert, and almost simul- 
 taneously in the other vessels. The expedition, notwith- 
 standing, proceeded towards the confluence of the Niger 
 and Tchadda, at which point an agreement had already 
 been made Avith the Attah for the cession of land for a 
 model farm. A tract of land was chosen near Mount Pat- 
 teh, where the soil, although not of the best quality, grew 
 a considerable quantity of cotton, and there seemed every 
 probability that coffee would grow on the hills. There 
 were on all sides traces of the ravages of the slave-trading 
 Fulatahs ; but, as the commissioners observed — 
 
 " The mere occupation of one or two stations by a few British 
 subjects would have the effect of establishing confidence among the 
 natives, who, once assured of the protecting care of Great Britain,
 
 234 SORROWFUL TIDINGS. [^t. 55. 
 
 would be easily induced to build up their former habitations, and 
 thus furnish a useful population, and have a beneficial effect on the 
 surrounding tribes." 
 
 As soon as the land had been selected for the model 
 farm, the people in the vicinity brought abundance of pro- 
 visions to the new settlement for sale, and those who had 
 nothing to dispose of came and hired themselves as labour- 
 ers. Nothing could exceed the good feeling shewn by the 
 natives on every occasion. Cotton cloths of good manu- 
 facture, spun cotton, calabashes beautifully carved and orna- 
 mented, tobacco, camwood balls, shea butter, dried buffalo 
 flesh, and dried fish, were brought on board in great quan- 
 tities. As with most Africans, trafiic seemed to be the 
 predominant passion with the people, with a good share 
 of dexterity in turning a bargain to their own account. 
 
 " So far," says Mr Commissioner Cook, " the object of 
 the expedition had been attained, and everything promised 
 a favourable termination to the mission." But now sick- 
 ness broke out on board, and increased with such appalling 
 rapidity, that Captain Trotter deemed it advisable to send 
 the sick back to the sea in the Soudan. 
 
 The intelligence that one of the steamers had returned 
 to Fernando Po, and that nine men had died of the fever, 
 reached England in the beginning of December. It may 
 well be conceived how this news was felt by the friends of 
 the cause in England. Sir Fowell Buxton writes to his son : — 
 
 "NoRTHREPPS Hall, December 4, 1841. 
 " I was very glad to receive your letter, reminding me that, in 
 such a storm, there is but ohc anchor ; but that one all-sufficient. 
 The blow, however, is tremendous. There is no comfort to be 
 found under it, save in the assurance that it is the will and the 
 work of our mercifvd God. Mysterious it certainly is ; but could 
 we survey the whole, there can be no doubt we should perceive that 
 all was done hi true mercy and never-failing love. Our text for the 
 day has been, ' Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be re- 
 moved, and thougli the mountains be carried into the midst of the 
 fica.' Tlie sympatliy of dear Catherine's letter was quite charming 
 — it has been a great comfort both to my wife and me. I think Sir 
 Robert Inglis could not have done a better thing than asking the 
 Uishop to prepare a jirayer for us. How extremely gratified I shall 
 be, if a day is appointed for the purpose ! " 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 " December 6, 1841. 
 " Even now I do not wish the whole effort undone. A way, I
 
 !841.] THE NIGER EXPEDITION. 235 
 
 firmly believe, Is opened for the missionary into the heart of Africa, 
 and we have found, in some respects, greater facilities than we ex- 
 pected. And is the price we have to pay so intolerably heavy ? Is 
 the loss of nine men enough to damp all our zeal, and quench all 
 our courage ? Would it have been enough, if we had been at war 
 with the French, or the Americans, or even the Chinese, to stop us ? 
 Would the public feeling have been quite satisfied if it were said, 
 ' Why, we have lost nine men ; we must give over ; it would be 
 madness to fight any longer ! ' Oh, but war with France is quite a 
 different case ; great national interests are concerned ! And are no 
 interests concerned in the overthrow of the slave trade, in the spread 
 of gospel light over the darkness of Africa, in the addition of a fourth 
 quarter to the productions and the requirements of the world ? Not 
 only the interests of the nation, but those of human nature are con- 
 cerned in this expedition ; and it is not a trifle that shall put us to 
 flight. Perhaps these very calamities have been sent in order to 
 try us, and to ascertain whether we have faith enough, sufficient 
 reliance on the promises of God to hear our prayers, and to be near 
 us in our trials. It may be that, after all, a better day is now dawn- 
 ing for Africa, and I am disposed to believe that this is the fact, and 
 that, if we do our part manfully, we shall not be defeated, even in 
 this very expedition." 
 
 The next tidings which reached England did not confirm 
 this hope. The sickness still continuing, Captain Trotter 
 was compelled, on the 21st of September, to direct the 
 Wdherforce to follow the Soudan to the sea, wliilst he and 
 Captain Bird Allen pushed forward in the Albert, in hopes 
 of reaching Rabba, a very large town, the capital of the 
 Fulatahs. After leaving the confluence, the banks of the 
 river were found to be better peopled, and " a great many 
 villages " were observed. In the market-place of Gori were 
 not less than from fifteen hundred to two thousand people. 
 The articles exposed for sale were bags of salt from Rabba, 
 robes of various colours, country cloths, camwood in balls, 
 iron-work, as hoes and shovels, Indian corn, ground nuts, 
 twine, sUk, seeds of various kinds, shea butter, straw hats 
 with enormous brims, platters of wood, and calabashes beau- 
 tifully carved. 
 
 Mr Schcin also mentions " several large bags of cotton in 
 its raw state." He asserts, that the price of cotton there 
 could not be less than in England ; but, he adds, " it is 
 true that they might grow ten thousand times the quantity 
 they are now growing." The trade of dyeing blue was car- 
 ried on there ; the blacksmith was busy at his anvil, and 
 the grinders of the Guinea corn at the stones.
 
 236 TOWN OF EGGA. [Mt. 65. 
 
 When, some weeks afterwards, the Albert descended the 
 river, the commissioners found that at Budda, the furthest 
 point of the Attah's territory, he had faithfully proclaimed 
 the Jaw against slave-trading : — 
 
 " The inhabitants," says Mr Schon, " candidly admitted that 
 Budda had ever been a great slave-market, but said that from the 
 time they heard that the Attah abolished the slave trade, they re- 
 linquished it altogether. They v^ere glad to hear that an English 
 settlement had been commenced at the confluence, and said that they 
 would go and see how white people built houses and made farms ; 
 and they would settle near them to be protected from the Fulatahs. 
 The same desire was expressed at Kinami, a few miles further — the 
 first village in the Nufi country, which is tributary to the power- 
 ful and warlike Fulatah nation, who keep the Nufis in continual 
 teiTor. The inhabitants of Kinami are estimated at one thousand 
 by Captain Trotter. They occupy themselves in weaving, and carry 
 on some trade with Egga in country cloths, ivory, and bees' wax." 
 
 Egga was the largest town yet seen on the banks of the 
 river ; the population was reckoned at seven or eight thou- 
 sand. The people were in general tall and well made ; the 
 form of the head, the countenance, and the lighter shade of 
 the colour of the skin, indicated an intermixture of the 
 Caucasian with the Negro race. The manufacturing of 
 country cloths was found to be the principal occupation of 
 the people. There were no less than two hundred looms 
 employed in various parts of the town. 
 
 At Egga, Captain Trotter had reached a point three hun- 
 dred mid tivenly miles from the sea. He had accomplished 
 his object with respect to two of the three kingdoms to 
 which he had been sent ; but he was now compelled to re- 
 linquish his hope of completing his work by reaching the 
 town of Rabba. " A very little mediation on our parts," 
 he observes, " might probably have had the effect of making 
 the Nufi nation more independent, and less oppressed, and 
 liave tended materially to the diminution of the slave 
 trade." But the sickness on board had become so very 
 alarming, that it was found absolutely necessary, on the 
 4th of October, to steam down the river with all speed. 
 Captain Bird Allen, who had been most anxious to perse- 
 vere, and in fact almost all the officers and men on board, 
 cxcej)t the negroes, were seized with the deadly fever. 
 Captain Trotter himself was at longtli disabled by it ; and 
 at this critical period the engineers also were too ill to per-
 
 1841.] IXCREASED ILLNESS. 237 
 
 form their duty ! Dr Stanger (tlie geologist), however, 
 liaving learned how to manage the engines, from a scien- 
 tific treatise on board, undertook to work them himself; 
 and Dr M'William, in addition to his laborious duties in 
 attending the sick, conducted the ship down the river, with 
 the assistance of only one white sailor, " in the most able 
 and judicious manner." 
 
 While the Albert was still a hundred miles from the sea, 
 its disabled crew were surprised and delighted by seeing a 
 steamer coming up the stream towards them It proved 
 to be the Ethiope, commanded by Captain Becroft, who 
 had been directed by Mr Jamieson to afford every assist- 
 ance to the expedition. This timely assistance was of the 
 greatest importance. Captain Becroft and his engineer 
 took charge of the Albert, and brought her in safety to 
 Fernando Po. It was hoped that Captain Bird Allen and 
 his gaUant fellow-sufferers would rapidly revive under the 
 influence of its purer air ; but many were already too much 
 sunk to receive benefit, and the mortality was most pain- 
 ful. Of the three hundred and one persons who composed 
 the expedition, when it commenced the ascent of the Niger, 
 forty-one perished from the African fever. It may be 
 worth while to observe, that of the one hundred and eight 
 Afi'icans on board not one died from the effects of the dis- 
 ease. Captain Bird Allen fell a victim to it, at Fernando 
 Po, on the 21st of October. 
 
 Thus failed the Niger Expedition. From the facts 
 stated by all the different gentlemen who were on board, 
 and who have written accounts of what they saw, and also 
 from the direct assertions of the four commissioners, it 
 would appear that nothing but the climate prevented the 
 expedition from fulfilling the most sanguine hopes of its 
 promoters. 
 
 The natives proved to be far more inclined to trade, and 
 far less barbarous and disorganised, than could have been 
 supposed possible. They eagerly sought the protection of 
 the British from their slave-trading oppressors, the Fula- 
 tahs ; and that protection it would have been perfectly 
 easy to give. The country, although some thought it less 
 fertile than had been anticipated, was found to produce 
 cotton, sugar-cane, coffee, indigo, ginger, arrowroot, dye-
 
 238 CONDUCT OF THE NATIVES. [^T. 55. 
 
 woods, magnificeiit timber for ship-building, palm oil, and 
 many other important articles of commerce. Ivory also 
 vras plentiful. 
 
 " The banks of the Niger," writes Captain W. Allen, " are popu- 
 lous, with the exception of the neighbourhood of the mangrove 
 swaoips ; but wherever man has been able to get a firm footing, he 
 has cleared away a patch for cultivation, and has built his hut. 
 These are found to increase rapidly as we ascend the river. Large 
 villages, towns, and even populous cities are met with. The banks 
 of the Tchadda, however, have been almost depopulated by the fre- 
 quent slave-catching expeditions. The country on both sides never- 
 theless is capable of supporting prodigious numbers : the luxuriance 
 of the vegetation is beyond belief, and the palm-tree, which would 
 form a groundwork for national wealth and prosperity, grows in the 
 gi-eatest abundance. . . . The strongest characteristic of the people 
 is the love of traffic ; it is indeed their ruling passion. Every town 
 has a market, generally once in four days ; but the principal feature 
 is in the large fairs held at different points in the river, about once 
 a fortnight, for what may be called their foreign trade, or intercourse 
 with neighbouring nations. . . . Here, then, we have an immense 
 and highly productive country, at no gi-eat distance from our shores, 
 and which may even be said to diminish daily by the improvements 
 in steam navigation. The nations inhabiting this valuable region 
 are desirous of being supplied with our manufactures. ... If the 
 only interchangeable commodities were salt and palm oil, a profit- 
 able trade might be extended to the interior, and yet, with such 
 vast resources and capabilities on both sides, the exports from the 
 greatest commercial country in the world, which is seeking on all 
 sides an outlet for its manufactures, is less than half a million 
 sterling." 
 
 It was tlie climate, and the climate alone, that prevented 
 the expedition from being the herald of Christianity to West 
 Africa. The disposition of the natives was found to be 
 eminently favourable to the settlement of missionaries 
 among them. 
 
 " Their conduct," says Captain Trotter, " not only at the model 
 farm, but on all other occasions that came under my notice, is a 
 subject to which I feel much pleasure in adverting ; as during the 
 entire period in which the vessels under my command were in the 
 Niger, not only the; native chiefs of the country, but the people in 
 general, evinced tli(! Tiiost friendly disijosition towards us, anil this 
 not only duriiig our ])roHpcrity, wliilst going up the river, but also in 
 our forlorn condition, when coming down. ... I may remark, that 
 the dcHJre evinced l)y the natives in the neighbourhood of the model 
 farm to be tauglit tlio tJhri.stian religion, gives mo reason to believe 
 that when the day liappily arrives of missionaries reaching that part 
 of Africa, tlu;y will be gl;idly welcomed by the inhabitants,"
 
 1842.] OPINION OF THE COMMISSIONERS. 239 
 
 In a despatch, addressed to Lord J. Eussell from Iddah, 
 the four commissioners expressly state their belief that 
 " Christian missionaries and teachers may be safely and 
 advantageously introduced into this part of Africa ; a mea- 
 sure which, by the blessing of Almighty God, would tend 
 effectually, in our opinion, to enlighten this unhappy coun- 
 try, and to put an end for ever to the abominable slave 
 trade." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 It may be well conceived vdth what anguish Sir Fowell 
 Buxton received the melancholy tidings of the Niger Expe- 
 dition. Deeply did he sympathise with the sufferings of 
 the brave men who had attempted to carry out his plans ; 
 nor was he less dejected at feeling that the door was closed, 
 for the present at least, through which he had hoped that 
 so many blessings might have been poured upon Africa. 
 His health, which had been undermined before, became 
 gradually more feeble, and he could no longer bear any sus- 
 tained mental exertion, especially if attended by any senge 
 of responsibility. To a man, the law of whose nature it was 
 to be at work, Avith head, hand, and heart, it was no slight 
 trial to be thus prematurely laid aside. He was only fifty- 
 five years of age ; but already the evening was come of his 
 day of ceaseless toil ; nor was its close brightened by the 
 beams of success and joy. The idea of what he termed 
 " the incomparable horrors " of the slave trade, had fastened 
 itself on his mind with the most vivid reality ; the burning 
 and plundered villages of Africa, the ships traversing the 
 Atlantic with their cargoes of torture — these pictures were 
 ever before him. When unconscious that he was ob- 
 served, he would at times utter such groans as if his 
 heart were sinking beneath its load. But his grief was not 
 of that kind described by an old divine,* which " runs out 
 in voice." He rarely spoke of the expedition, — to Captain 
 Bird Allen's death he could scarcely allude at all ; but his 
 grave demeanour, his worn pale face, the abstraction of liis 
 manner, and the intense fervour of his supplications that 
 
 * Dr South. 
 M
 
 240 DECLINING HEALTH. [^t. 56. 
 
 God would " pity poor Africa," — tliese sliewed too well the 
 poignancy of his feelings. 
 
 And yet the three years which elapsed between the failure 
 of the Niger Expedition and his death, were brightened by 
 much domestic happiness ; by many country pleasures ; 
 by the great satisfaction of receiving, in the main, good 
 tidings of the working of emancipation in the West In- 
 dies ; by some encouragements about Africa : but, above 
 all, by the exercise of faith, and the consolations of reli- 
 gion. During all that period, he was humble, patient, 
 and resigned in an extraordinary degree ; and especially 
 was his heart overflowing with love to all around him, and 
 with the living spirit of thanksgiving and prayer. His cor- 
 respondence, after the lamentable issue of the expedition, 
 shews that his mind did not sink under discouragement ; 
 and although he candidly admitted the ruin of his own 
 scheme, he yet cherished hopes that the same great end 
 might be achieved in some other and better way. 
 
 To the Rev. J. M. Trew Sir Fowell thus expressed his 
 feelings, when he received the last painful accounts : — 
 
 " I need not tell you the grief excited by your heavy tidings. I 
 mourn from my inmost heart. But what can I Bay ? It has pleased 
 God to send us a deep disappointment — a personal, as well as public 
 calamity of no common kind. That dear Bird Allen : — his long ill- 
 ness — the sickness and suffering so grievously prevailing: that 
 gallant fellow Stenhouse — poor Willie — and the others 1 A mercy 
 
 indeed it is to have had Trotter spared Now we must meet 
 
 the case fairly, and we cannot conceal from ourselves, that tliis effort 
 for this time has been frustrated. The Government seem to decide 
 the question for us by recalling the expedition, and our course so 
 far is clearly pointed out — to pause till Captain Trotter's return, till 
 we have the facts fully before us, till they have been digested. It 
 may then appear that from the ruins of this enterprise another may 
 arise, consisting of negroes ; or it may appear that single mission- 
 aries must do the work. The call seems to me to be very distinct, 
 to be still, to wait in faith and submission for further light, and for 
 our Master's will concerning His own work." 
 
 Wlint he still could do, de did with his usual energy; and 
 amid all his own .sorrow he strove to maintain the hopes of 
 others. In a letter to the llev. C. W. Bingham, after 
 alluding to the mortality on board the vessels, he adds — 
 
 *' But, on the other hand, the natives received us kindly; they had 
 no objection to our making settlements in the country; they supplied
 
 1842.] HOPE FOR AFRICA. 241 
 
 us with provisions, and sold us land ; they have entered into treaties 
 for the abolition, both of the slave trade and of human sacrifices ; 
 and seem only more desirous to receive, than we can be to send them, 
 missionaries and instructors. This looks as if 'the set time were come,* 
 and makes me hold fast to conviction, that, although we may fail, 
 and our plans prove worthless, the day is at hand when the right 
 methods will be devised, and when Africa will be delivered. God 
 grant that that happy day may soon arrive ! " 
 
 " Your fixvourite oracle," he writes to Miss Gurney, 
 "thunders forth every day a leading article against me, and 
 attacks me in poetry and prose ; all of which does not ex- 
 cite a moment's vexation in my mind At all events, 
 
 we must not desert Africa till we see that all exertions are 
 useless." He earnestly hoped that the discouragement 
 would not preclude further efforts. Thus he writes : — 
 
 " Grant, for the sake of argument, that events have confuted my 
 ' Remedy ; ' that the latter half of my book be proved to be mere 
 nonsense ; yet the former part remains intact. No one denies the 
 enormous number of human beings whom the slave trade annually 
 devours. Because one plan has failed, are we to submit in patience 
 to this incomparable evil? Because we erred in one attempt to 
 subdue it, are we henceforward to act as if we were reconciled to 
 the abomination ; as if one abortive effort were all that humanity 
 pleads for, or that is required at our hands by the gospel of Christ ? 
 Again, our exertions have not been wholly useless. At all events we 
 know one thing, which we did not know before. We know how 
 the evil is to be cured ; that it is to be done by native agency ; by 
 coloured ministers of the gospel. Africa is to be delivered by her 
 own sons ! " 
 
 Strongly impressed with these feelings, he went to Lon- 
 don early in February, and passed a few weeks at the house 
 of his son ; giving all the strength he could muster to 
 meetings and consultations on the subject. The whole 
 spring was spent in a succession of painful efforts to gather 
 some benefit for Africa from the wreck of the Niger Expe- 
 dition. The model farm was still in existence ; and to ob- 
 tain the promise of an occasional visit to it from a Govern- 
 ment steamer was one of the principal objects at which he 
 earnestly aimed. The heads of the African Civilisation 
 Society obtained an interview with Lord Stanley which Sir 
 Fowell thus describes : — 
 
 "We entered the chamber of the great man, anxious, I take it,— 
 and one at least having on his lips and in his heart, * Lord, give 
 us good speed this day.'
 
 242 MEETING OF AFRICAN SOCIETY. [^t. 53. 
 
 " Lord Stanley received lis very kindly, and Lushington opened 
 our case with great skill, and boldness too. How hearty my prayer 
 had been for him and for myself, that utterance might be given to 
 us, that we might ' speak with all boldness as we ought to speak.' 
 Then followed Sir Robert Inglis, saying strong things in a very 
 mild voice, and in a very gentle manner. Then Acland put in a 
 few words extremely well, and then I spoke ; contending that, one 
 point excepted, that of the climate, we had met with success in every 
 particular, and that it would be most wicked and shameful to aban- 
 don Africa in consequence of anything that had occurred. After 
 hearing all we had to say, he offered, very frankly, to send 
 round the Cabinet any paper which we should transmit to him, 
 embodying our ideas, and stating what we wish." 
 
 Upon Sir Fowell's return to Northrepps, he received a 
 visit from the Kev. J. F. Sclion, of the Church Missionary 
 Society, who had been chaplain to the Niger Expedition. 
 Sir Fowell tells his nephew and faithful coadjutor, Mr 
 Gumey Hoare, March 24, — 
 
 " Schon has been staying a week with me. I perceive that he 
 attaches the deepest importance to the intercourse which would be 
 produced with Africa by the retention of the model farm. If you 
 and Cook, and Samuel Gurney cannot concur with me in my anxious 
 desire to give the model farm one fair chance, but feel that it must 
 be abandoned, even before the first crop has been harvested, I will 
 thank you to summon a meeting of all the subscribers, in most 
 urgent terms, and I will come up in order to make the forlorn at- 
 tempt to obtain a majority for going on a little longer. God grant 
 that we may be wisely directed in this very important matter." 
 
 A public meeting of the African Civilisation Society was 
 to be held in June : he wrote many letters on the subject, 
 but was unable to take a part in the meeting. 
 
 TO DU LUSHINGTON. 
 
 "Map 14, 1842. 
 "I try to whip myself up to some exertion ; but it is all in vain. 
 I can do nolhiny ; the truth is, you and I feel the effects of the last 
 
 quarter of a century How do you like Peel's new tariff? I 
 
 look at it, as at everything else, with an eye to Africa ; and I think 
 lowering the duty on timber, rice, and many other things, can hardly 
 fail to be productive of benefit to us." 
 
 TO Lonn ASiii.KY (chairman of the meetino alluded to.) 
 
 " NouTHRErpa, Hall, June 18, 1842. 
 
 "My Dear Lord Ahiiley, — It is no little aggravation of the trial 
 
 of my prcKcnt ill liealUi, that it prevents mo from attending the 
 
 uiccting of our Society. 1 need hardly as.suro you that I retain an 
 
 unaltered c(jnvicliou on two points, viz. that whatever discourage-
 
 1812.] MEETING OF AFRICAN SOCIETY. 243 
 
 ments we may meet with, it is our duty to persevere. And again, 
 that the Lord of compassion and righteousness is, and will be, with 
 those who faithfully labour for the purpose of rescuing millions of 
 the human race, not only from their moral darkness, but from the 
 intense sufferings which thej'^ now endure. May He hasten the day 
 when the gospel, with its train of attendant blessings, shall shine 
 forth upon Africa. 
 
 " I am very thankful that, although I am debarred from taking 
 my share of labour, your Lordship and other faithful men are 
 stiU prosecuting the good cause." 
 
 Nothing could be stronger than the contrast between the 
 exulting hopes of the meeting in 1840, and the sorrowrful 
 tidings which were to be communicated to the one now 
 convened ; nevertheless its tone was less desponding than 
 had been feared. 
 
 Lord John Kussell, with generous courage, came forward 
 and took a prominent part in the proceedings, boldly as- 
 serting the soundness of the principles on which the schemes 
 had been founded. The present Bishop of Oxford spoke 
 with hereditary eloquence and feeling. He fully admitted 
 the disappointment, but, like Lord John Eussell, he did 
 not fear to uphold the principles which had actuated them, 
 the righteousness of the cause, and the certainty of ulti- 
 mate success, if discouragement did not paralyse their 
 exertions. 
 
 Among the speakers were the Bishops of Gloucester and 
 Norwich, Lords Mahon, Sandon, Teignmouth, andFortescue, 
 Sir R. H. Inglis and Sir T. D. Acland. 
 
 TO LORD JOHN BUSSELL. 
 
 "June 23, 1842. 
 "My Dear Lord John, — You must excuse me for giving you the 
 trouble of reading a line from me, but I feel personally so obliged 
 to you for your well-timed and powerful assistance, and for your 
 generosity in coming forward publicly, and claiming your share of 
 the obloquy which has been cast on vis, that I must be permitted to 
 offer you my most sincere thanks. The effects of the late meeting 
 will not, I am persuaded, be lost. It has already put us in better 
 spirits, and will, I trust, convince the country that the efforts made 
 to reclaim and civilise Africa, are not so wild and visionary as they 
 have been described." 
 
 It may be supposed how soothing to his feelings, at this 
 time, was the following letter from his highly valued 
 friend, the Bishop of Calcutta : —
 
 244 MODEL FARM ABANDONED. [^t. 5G. 
 
 "Bishop's Palace, Calcutta, April 9, 1842. 
 
 " Be not cast down, my dearest friend ; yield not to disappoint- 
 ment and sorrow; all will work for good. The grand blow issti'uck; 
 the monster must fall like Dagon before the ark ; and your honest, 
 devoted, anxious heart shall yet be comforted with blessed tidings : 
 and indeed when we consider how little we worms of the earth can 
 scan the designs of an infinite Being, we need not wonder that grief 
 and disquietude sometimes follow on our best concerted schemes. 
 Supposing all our hopes to fail, Providence has other ways of 
 bringing about the redemption of the enslaved population of Africa. 
 
 " Let us, then, go on cheerfully in the use of all such means as 
 are open to us, and new and unsuspected blessings will arise in due 
 time. Gird up the loins of your mind ; be sober and hope to the 
 end. Nothing we do for God in the cause of humanity is lost either 
 to the cause or to ourselves. Soon, soon the tempest will be calmed; 
 soon life will be past; soon the heavenly port will open to our frail 
 and weather-beaten bark, and we shall have reached that 'good 
 land.' .... Ever believe me, your sincere and affectionate friend, 
 
 " D. Calcutta." 
 
 In July, 1842, Lieutenant Webb courageously volunteer- 
 ed to go up tlie Niger in the Wilberfoixe to visit tlie model 
 farm. He found the settlers all well : a large portion of 
 ground had been cleared ; and from twenty to thirty acres 
 were "in good order, mainly planted with cotton, the grow- 
 ing crops of which were very promising." 
 
 On the other hand, owing to the murder of Mr Carr, 
 while returning to the model farm from Fernando Po, the 
 settlers had been deprived of all effective superintendence. 
 Mr Moore, the negro in charge, had no authority over his 
 companions ; and, in consequence, the most complete dis- 
 organisation had taken place. These evils Lieutenant Webb 
 expected to remedy by leaving Mr Hensman, the surgeon 
 pro temjiore of the Wilberforce, as superintendent ; but 
 sickness appearing on board, Mr Hensman could not be 
 sjiarcd. Lieutenant Webb therefore broke up the settle- 
 ment, and brought all the people away. 
 
 The tribes which had collected round the farm expressed 
 the deepest regret at its being removed ; and even displea- 
 sure, that the white man should come and sit down among 
 them, " to teach them his fashion," and then go away. 
 For a moment iSir FowelTs equanimity was ruffled by this 
 bitter disappointnieiit. 
 
 "Ah to till! inodul farm," ho writes to Mr Trcw, "it makes one 
 mad to think that it waH g"iiig on so well — our experiment likely
 
 1843.] SUSPENSION OF AFRICAN SOCIETY. 24-5 
 
 to be successful, — and that they were torn away because Lieutenant 
 Webb had not a superintendent to spare them. However, all regrets 
 are kept down by the reflection that at the head of our cause stands 
 One who cannot err." 
 
 TO HIS YOUNGER SONS, AT TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 " NoRTHREPPS Hall, Fth-uary, 1843. 
 
 "My Dear Fowell and Charles, — Our Sabbath day's business is 
 over, and our family reading finished. Well, you have been much, 
 in all our minds to-day. I hope it has been a tranquillisiug day to 
 you, and that, knowing that you have each done your best, you are 
 satisfied in committing yourselves and the result of the examination 
 to Him whose province it is to decide what shall be the issue of 
 every effort. You must bear in mind, that though you may lose 
 the places at which you aim, you will not therefore lose the advan- 
 tage of your studies. The knowledge you have acquired, and your 
 habits of application, wUl in great measure cleave to you all your 
 life long. Despite aU my philosophy, however, I shall most heartily 
 rejoice in your success. 
 
 " Now, God bless you ! May you not forget to pray for help, 
 knowing that it is expressly promised to those who humbly and 
 devoutly ask it, ' Commit your way unto the Lord, and He shall 
 bring it to pass.' " 
 
 In January, 1843, Sir Fowell proceeded to London, to 
 bear his part in the painful duty of dissolving the African 
 CiviKsation Society. In reply to the summons to attend 
 the meeting, he says, in a letter to the Eev. J. M. Trew, 
 " I feel as if I were going to attend the funeral of an old 
 and dear friend." After the resolutions for suspending the 
 operations of the Society had been passed, he addressed 
 the meeting in a tone of deep feeling. He warmly thanked 
 the committee for their past exertions, and, although he 
 insisted strongly that the expedition had not failed in any 
 one of its great objects, stiU he admitted that there was a 
 necessity for the step that had now been taken. He alluded 
 to the attacks of the papers, but added that, " painfully as 
 he felt all the disasters which had attended the expedition, 
 he did not accuse himself of having been imprudent or 
 over-sanguine in the measures which he had proposed." 
 
 A meeting of the Ladies' Society for educating the 
 negroes in the West Indies, which he attended about this 
 time, bore a brighter aspect. He writes : — 
 
 " I was quite fired by it, and cheered. You cannot conceive how 
 well Trew spoke ; and Sir Edward Parry capitally too. I came .to 
 the conclusion that I ought never to be low, never downcast, all the
 
 246 PLANTATIONS. [JEt. 57. 
 
 rest of my pilgrimage, the accounts are so very bright of those for 
 whom my heart used to bleed a few years ago. And these bless- 
 ings I firmly trust will last long after I shall be mouldering in the 
 dust." 
 
 Some years before this time he had purchased a small 
 estate at Trimingham, on the coast of Norfolk, four miles 
 from Cromer ; and he took great interest in executing va- 
 rious plans for its improvement. One of the farms he re- 
 tained in his own hands, and took great pains to bring the 
 land into the highest state of cultivation. In 1840 he 
 bought some more land at Runton, on the other side of 
 Cromer, and on both these properties he formed extensive 
 plantations. On commencing them, he wrote to Mr Aubin 
 at Rome : — 
 
 " NoETHRKPPS Hall, September 5. 
 
 " I am now once more settled at home, but as yet I have only been 
 able to get out shooting once. The fact is, I have been buying an 
 estate, where I hope, on some future day, to shew you some part- 
 ridges and a pheasant or two ; and I find more sport in the delicious 
 occupation of projecting improvements, and letting the imagination 
 run wild in visions of future woods and groves, which have yet to 
 be planted, than in pursuing preserved game. After all, I like your 
 wild Macarese shooting (bandits, assassins, vipers, and all) better 
 than our tame sport." 
 
 These plantations formed his chief amusement during the 
 last years of his life. " His friends," says Mr J. J. Gurney, 
 " will not fail to remember the lively pleasure which they 
 enjoyed in accompanying him over the hiUs and dales of 
 Runton and Trimingham, while he jiointed out to them the 
 exquisite views of the sea, already rendered more lovely by 
 the young and rising plantations in the foreground." Mr 
 Herbert Johnson, the former proprietor of the Runton es- 
 tate, was his constant and kind companion in his endeavours 
 to improve it. His plantations were called (as his horses 
 had been in earlier days) after the objects which were most 
 deeply interesting to him at the time. One wood went by 
 the name of " the Niger," another by that of " Fernando 
 Ro," and so on. 
 
 TO ANDUEW JOHNSTON, KSQ. 
 
 "NouTnuEPPS Hall, February 10, 1843. 
 "Our party liero, although very small, and with a touch of the 
 lonely, in very cheerful and comfortable. 
 
 " At least ninety families have been supported during this hard
 
 1843.] REMINISCENCES. 247 
 
 weather, by double trenching my plantations, and earning, I am 
 happy to say, on the average two shillings a day. But this last 
 snow has beat them, and they can do no more at present. I am get- 
 ting decidedly stronger, and feel more like myself. 
 
 " All Earlham came here yesterday to dinner. I have been riding 
 with a large party, to see my new plantations ; and we are all greatly 
 delighted. Love to all. In truth, I can say from my heart, ' The 
 good Lord bless you all.' " 
 
 One of his friends, observing to Mm, " Your plantations 
 will some day be the pride of the country, if England 
 stands." " England stand ! " said he. " I wUl never be- 
 lieve that any country wiU fall, which has abolished slavery 
 as England has done." 
 
 The following recollections of Sir Fowell, during the 
 latter years of his Hfe, are from the pen of his secretary, 
 Mr Nixon, and may aid the reader in forming a just idea of 
 his character : — 
 
 " The qualities which struck me most in Sir Fowell Buxton were 
 his perseverance, benevolence, disregard of outside appearances, his 
 entire devotion to what was practical, and, perhaps, beyond all, his 
 humility. 
 
 " As regards perseverance ; before entering upon an undertaking, 
 he seemed to consider, not whether success in it were probable, but 
 whether it were possible ; if so, he would set about it at once, and 
 never give in till that success was gained. 
 
 " His humility led him to esteem no one unworthy of a certain 
 portion of respect, however low his condition ; — so that I never in 
 any instance saw the principle of that Essay by Dr Channing, which 
 has for its title ' Honour due unto all men,' so fully and consistently 
 carried out as by him. 
 
 "In June, 1840, a few days after I became his secretary, he went 
 to town from Upton, leaving me the task of making an epitome of 
 his ' Slave Trade and Remedy.' When he returned we walked up 
 and down the lawn, I reading my paper to him. He listened very 
 attentively, and when it was finished, he tapped me on the shoulder, 
 and said, ' Very well done indeed, Mr Nixon ; it does you great credit, 
 but it won't do for me. It would make a capital flowery speech for 
 a young member of Parliament ; but I want something more prac- 
 tical, vtry brief and very strong : so now come along indoors, and let 
 us make a beginning.' 
 
 " I never recall the period of my connexion with Sir Fowell with- 
 out a feeling of astonishment at his wonderful powers of concentra- 
 tion, which enabled him to apply every atom of his energies to the 
 one purpose in hand. In carrying out a great object, he was borne 
 along irresistibly, and to compass it every efi'ort must be made, which 
 human ingenuity could point out, oj bodily endurance admit of. 
 He used to become far too deeply absorbed to be conscious of fatigue, 
 and would often laugh at me goodhumouredly when I complained
 
 248 ANECDOTES— REMINISCENCES. [^t. 57. 
 
 that I felt very tired, and should like to give up for awhile. ' Tired, 
 Nixon ! why, you don't know what it is to be tired. When you've 
 had nineteen years in Parhament, you '11 be able to form some 
 opinion of what it means : however, we must finish this job at any 
 rate. I don't care how many white slaves I make to save the black 
 ones ! ' 
 
 " Wlien he returned alone from Italy, at which time I became his 
 secretary, he was overwhelmed with business connected with the 
 Niger Expedition. These affairs were so widely ramified, that none 
 but a powerful mind could have sustained such constant and heavy 
 pressure. When the day's labour was over, he was frequently 
 quite unable to sleep, and night after night I was called upon to 
 read aloud to him, in the hope of soothing him to rest. Many a 
 time when I was at length dropping off into a lower and lower tone, 
 believing that his slumbers had begun, he would stop me suddenly, 
 exclaiming, ' Get me my memorandum-book, Mr Nixon ; set down 
 so and so,' and he would go on until there was work enough set down 
 for the next week perhaps. Then came another monotonous page 
 or two of the book I was reading, and then up he would get, saying, 
 ' It 's of no use, I can't sleep, come into the drawing-room, — now 
 then, take a sheet of paper ; ' he would then dictate three or four 
 notes, or a letter, or a portion of some long statement upon which he 
 might be engaged, and then go to bed again. 
 
 " His perseverance in small things, as well as in great, was dis- 
 played in the labour he bestowed on his plantations, which had been 
 formed upon the roughest ground, and were exposed to those bitter 
 north-east blasts which seemed to preclude all hope of covering the 
 hills with wood. But he spared no pains to accompUsh his purpose : 
 reading, correspondence, conversation with men of experience, visits 
 to nursery -grounds and woods, — every method was resorted to, for ob- 
 taining information, and securing success : and it was attained 
 abundantly. Indeed the flourishing plantations at Trimingham and 
 Runton are brought forward as the example of successful planting, 
 in the essay on that subject which gained the gold medal of the 
 lloyal Agricultural Society in 1 845. 
 
 " The rule of Sir Fowell's life was to be 'complete in all things,' 
 and to do well what he did at all : but I ought to observe, that in 
 farming his plantations he evidently derived the greatest part of his 
 jjleasurc from the employment it gave to the poor. 
 
 " His delight in horses was remarkable. I may relate an anecdote 
 which he tuld mo himself, in connexion with one of his favourites. 
 ' Poor old Abraham,' he said, ' was the finest horse I ever had in my 
 life. At the time wlien George IV. was very unpopular, I was riding 
 througli Ht James's Park, just as the King passed, surrounded by an 
 immcuHO mob. The shouts and groans and yellings were terrific, 
 and there was I wedged in among the multitude, in the midst of 
 noises which might have friglitened the most courageous animal. 
 Put my noblo-.4jiirited horso pricked up his ears, distended hia 
 TiostrilH, curved liis neck, and stood immovable. The next day 
 
 camo tiie Marquis of to endeavour to buy my horse. I said I 
 
 did not wish to sell him, that he was a great favoui'ite of mine, and
 
 1843.] ANECDOTES— REMINISCENCES. 249 
 
 perfectly suited my purpose. Nothing daunted, the Marquis held 
 his ground, made me first one offer and then another, and at last 
 told me that he was not endeavouring to buy the horse fc^r himself, 
 but was authorised to go as far as £500 for a friend. This offer I 
 still refused, when, as a last resourse, " The fact is, Mr Buxton," 
 said he, " it is the King who has sent me to buy your horse, and I 
 hope you will not refuse to sell him to his Majesty." This took me 
 rather aback, but I had made up my mind; so, with very many 
 apologies and regrets, and in the politest manner imaginable, I 
 maintained my ground, and thus the matter ended. What I meant, 
 though I didn't think it exactly civil to say so, was, " You may tell 
 his Majesty that I 'm happy to hear he 's so fond of a good horse ; 
 but so am I, and having got one I mean to keep him ! " ' 
 
 " His generosity was unbounded. I remember, when we were at 
 Bath, his chief pleasure was to look into the shops, and see what he 
 could buy for his family, his grandchildren, or his friends. His 
 manner, too, of making a present was the most agreeable and deli- 
 cate imaginable. In looking over things, he would sometimes say, 
 ' Well, I don't know which to choose ; which do you think is the 
 best, Nixon V And on my pointing out which I thought the most 
 desirable article, he would say, ' Oh, you think so, do you, sir ! weU, 
 then, put that on one side for Mr Nixon.' 
 
 " His public liberality, which is so generally known, was only 
 equalled by his private acts of generosity and charity — acts which 
 were known only to myself and the recipients of his bounty. He 
 appeared totally unable to deny relief, where it seemed to be re- 
 quired, although he might feel it had not been merited. Some- 
 times, when he had relieved the same person several times, he would 
 give me directions to write a rather sharp note, stating that he could 
 attend to no further applications. In the course of the day he 
 would ask me whether I had sent the note. He would then hesi- 
 tate, read over the applicant's letter once again, and then leaning 
 back in his arm-chair and raising his spectacles upon his forehead, 
 would look me steadily in the face. ' What do you think of it, 
 Nixon ? The poor old villain seems to be in a bad way, shall I 
 send him a trifle more ? ' On my declining to give an opinion, he 
 would continue, ' Well, then, send him another sovereign, and as 
 this is the seventh time he has promised never to apply to me again, 
 tell him that I give him a trifle this once, but only on condition that 
 I am never to see his handwriting any more. I don't wish to hurt 
 the poor old fellow's feelings, but explain to him, in the very civilest 
 terms imaginable, that I '11 see his neck stretched before I send him 
 another halfpenny.' Then rising to go out of the room, he would 
 look back before shutting the door, to beg of me ' not to put it too 
 sharp,' and to let him see the letter before sending it off. Such was 
 the man — he could not bear to give a moment's pain. 
 
 " I hardly ever saw such affection towards little children as his 
 was. Though engaged in the most difficult business, he could 
 hardly make up his mind to turn them out, when they came to 
 him in the study, without a present of sweetmeats or cakes, which 
 he used often to hoard up for them ; and if he happened to hear a
 
 250 ANECDOTES— REMINISCENCES. [JEt. 57. 
 
 child cry in the far-off regions of the nursery, he used to jump up, 
 leaving, in the midst, the most important letter or paper, and could 
 never rest till he had gained relief from this, to him, painful 
 occurrence. 
 
 " It wonld sometimes happen that a little cause of dispute arose 
 between us, generally some difference of opinion ; and I, unfortu- 
 nately, could seldom restrain myself from saying precisely what, at 
 the moment, I felt. This used to vex him ; but he would say no- 
 thing till the next day, and then, when I thought that the whole 
 matter had passed off, (having perhaps received great kindness in the 
 meantime,) he would all at once say, ' What a silly fellow yon were, 
 Nixon, to put yourself in such a passion yesterday ! If I had 
 spoken then, we should most probably have parted. Make it a 
 rule never to speak when you are in a passion, but wait till the 
 next day.' 
 
 " If, at any time, he happened to transgress this rule himself, he 
 was seriously vexed and grieved, and could not rest till he had in 
 some way made amends for his want of self-restraint. Most men 
 consider it not very necessary, perhaps degrading, to make an apo- 
 logy to those below them in station ; but such was not his case. 
 The plan of people, in general, is tacitly to acknowledge their error 
 by an increase of kindness, if they do not actually presume upon 
 their authority, and make ' might ' stand for ' right ; ' but such was 
 not his mode of action. 
 
 " I recollect one instance well. He was going to shoot at Runton, 
 and just before he was to start I had been urging some point 
 upon him, which I knew to be necessary, but perhaps I did so 
 with too great vehemence, and not enough respect. At this time 
 the carriage was announced, and he left the room, saying, ' I 
 tell you what, Nixon, I don't wish you to come out shooting 
 with me, and had much rather you would not ! ' I was sure, how- 
 ever, that ho did not actually mean this ; so, after a minute's reflec- 
 tion, I mounted the pony and rode after him. When near the Fel- 
 briggs Lodges, I saw the coachman pull up, and after speaking to 
 Sir Fowell, beckon to me. As soon as I reached the side of the car- 
 riage, he put his hand out of the window, saying, ' Come, Nixon, I 
 know I was wrong ; you must not think anything more of what I 
 said just now !' 
 
 " 1 do not put forward these few recollections of Sir Fowell as 
 avccdotex, but merely as rough memoranda; and I am only sorry 
 that I have been able to record so few. In conclusion, I may say, 
 that it has given me sincere pleasure thus to review the period of 
 my fortunate connexion with him ; and that my reverence and 
 esteem for him are, if possible, increased every time that I am led 
 to reflect wjjon his character."
 
 1843.] DESIRES FOR AFRICA. 251 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 In the spring of 1843, lie was recommended to try the 
 Bath waters. In a letter from thence to Mr Johnston, after 
 alluding to the poor state of his health, he says : — 
 
 " Bath, March Z, 1843. 
 
 " . . . . Now for something better. To use David's words, ' My 
 mouth hath been filled with laughter' since I read in the Globe, 
 which arrived yesterday, the account of Brougham asking a question 
 about the slave trade, and of Lord Aberdeen replying, ' that he was 
 convinced the time would soon come when it would be abolished 
 altogether,' 
 
 " Pray turn to it, and let P. taste the delight of hearing that de- 
 bate, and of seeing that, although our good Lord did not think 
 proper to execute our plan, it seems every way probable that He is 
 preparing to accomplish the work, which is all that signifies, and all 
 that I care for. If He do but undertake the task, we know that all 
 obstacles are removed, and all difficulties surmounted. It puts me 
 into the greatest gaiety of heart." 
 
 TO MISS GURNET. 
 
 "Bavb, May 19, 1843. 
 
 " .... As to myself, if I am to tell the truth, I do not feel 
 strong, and partly from frequent attacks of illness, and feebleness, 
 and partly from the manner in which my doctor shook his head, I 
 catch myself saying, in the language of Christopher North, ' Though 
 our day be not quite gone by, we think we see the stealing shades 
 of evening, and in the solemn vista, the darkness of night.' 
 
 " I called at the Colonial Office when I was in London ; James 
 Stephen spoke in such glowing terms of the conduct of the negroes 
 since emancipation, as sent me home quite exulting." 
 
 In writing to Mr Scoble, explaining his absence from the 
 Anti-Slavery Convention, he adds, " I can no longer per- 
 sonally unite with you in fighting ; but my prayer to God 
 is, that He would stand by all those who are engaged in 
 the holy attempt to put down these iniquities." 
 
 He would occasionally express an earnest desire that he 
 might be enabled to work again in the service of Africa ; 
 " but," he observed on one occasion, " no matter who is 
 the instrument so that there be successful labourers for 
 God, for Christ, and for man, especially for heathen 
 man !" 
 
 The summer of the year was passed very quietly at North- 
 repps. His extremely feeble health precluding him from 
 exertion, he amused himself with the improvement of his
 
 252 REV. S. CROWTHER. [^t. 57. 
 
 farm and plantations ; while, in the evenings, he delighted 
 to come out i;pon the lawn, and watch the villagers at their 
 games of cricket. While the force of his mind was waning, 
 his affections seemed to cling with ever-increasing warmth 
 to all who were dear to him. It would be impossible to 
 describe the energy of his prayers while imploring every 
 " good and perfect gift " for those whom he loved, both 
 present and far away ; but above all, morning and evening, 
 did his most fervent supplications ascend, that his hea- 
 venly Father would stretch forth His hand to deliver 
 " poor Africa." 
 
 TO MBS JOHNSTON, HALESWORTH. 
 
 " August, ISi'i. 
 " We have just finished our family reading, and therefore I trust 
 I shall stand acquitted, even in Andrew's eyes, of violating the Sab- 
 bath, if I spend a few moments with almost the dearest friend I 
 have. Your image has been present with me all the day. I fear, 
 too, that you are still in suffering. I look about me, thinking what 
 there is that we could do t'lit might add to your comfort. I can- 
 not think how it was that I was so stubborn about that portrait of 
 myself. ' May you have it ? ' To be sure you may, and I only wish 
 it were ten times more worth your having. I will send it by the 
 van forthwith." .... 
 
 TO ABOHDEACON TREW, ON ENTERING ON HIS OFFICE IN THE 
 BAHAMAS. 
 
 " October, 1843. 
 " There is this comfort in your leaving England, that you are 
 embarked in a noble cause, and if you succeed in obtaining black 
 men, who are truly converted and spiritual Christians, to labour in 
 Africa, it will be worth, not only any inconvenience to which you 
 may be exposed, but the lives of any ten of us. So go in good heart, 
 my dear friend, and the Lord go along with you." 
 
 In the autumn he received a visit from the Uev, Samuel 
 Crowtlier, who, during his visit, preached in Northrepps 
 Churcli ; and Sir Fowcll was not a little gratified at hear- 
 ing an excellent sermon from the lips of a negro clergyman. 
 In his sermon, Mr Crowtlier alluded to the failure of the 
 Niger ]']xi)editi()n ; but, after describing some of its results 
 in opening communication between Sierra Leone and other 
 parts of Africa, and airording great facilities for missionary 
 cntcrpri.se, he declared that it had already produced im- 
 portant good, and that " some of those who had sown 
 weeping would yet bring in their sheaves rejoicing ; for
 
 1844.] SEVERE ILLNESS. 253 
 
 what greater joy can there be for them, than to hear that 
 their children are walking in the truth ? " 
 
 In the same tone Mr Beecham writes, on sending Sir 
 Fowell the Rev. Mr Freeman's narrative of his third journey 
 in Western Africa : — 
 
 " You live to see that the Niger Expedition has not been a total 
 failure. It has not worked out its beneficial results exactly in the 
 way which was anticipated ; but Almighty God is making it accom- 
 plish, in His own way, the good on which your benevolent heart was 
 set. The Niger Expedition has given a new impulse to the African 
 mind, and induced the emigration from Sierra Leone, which has 
 opened the way into Yoruba and Dahomey, and placed even Central 
 Africa within our reach." 
 
 These remarks have been strikingly justified by the 
 events of the last few years. The Niger Expedition created 
 communication between that river and England. Hence 
 has arisen that important trade in cotton, and many other 
 articles, which, though still in the bud, is expanding with 
 great rapidity, and bids fair in time to spread civilisation 
 and Christianity through West Africa, while supplying 
 Europe with the boundless wealth of her fertile soil. 
 
 Towards the end of November, Sir Fowell sank for a 
 time into an alarming state of debility, with loss of memory, 
 and other distressing symptoms. He frequently put his 
 hands up to his head, as if it were in pain ; fetching 
 deep sighs and groans, and tottering even in walking 
 across the room. But his mind, though its force was 
 shaken, was illumined by the sweetest glow of love to God 
 and man. Some one expressing sympathy with his suffer- 
 ing, he replied, " Oh ! it is the gracious act of our most 
 merciful Father; let us most peacefully acquiesce." He 
 remarked to his son that he thought him.self worse, and that 
 he strongly suspected that his right hand and arm were be- 
 numbed. His son tried to turn it off, observing, among 
 other things, "I am persuaded you need not be afraid." 
 " Oh, no ! " replied he, with great emphasis, " I am not 
 afraid. Whether for life or death, I am not afraid. I hope 
 it is not presumptuous ; I have trust in God." 
 
 His own trials made him feel most acutely for those of 
 others. Being asked one night why he was sighing so 
 heavily, he replied, " For the suffering that is in the world." 
 Thanksgivings, however, were perpetually on his lips. Ou
 
 254 AFRICANS AT SIERRA LEONE [^t. 58. 
 
 one occasion he exclaimed with great fervour, "0 Lord, 
 ■with my whole soul I thank Thee, that, instead of ease, and 
 prosperity, and the best things of this world, Thou has sent 
 this illness." And afterwards he earnestly prayed that the 
 insight granted him into heavenly things might never be 
 obscured or fade from his view, but that he might ever pant 
 after them, and give his whole soul, and heart, and strength 
 to the Lord, who had mercy upon him. 
 
 TO THE BISHOP OP CALCUTTA. 
 
 "May.lSU. 
 
 " I have, indeed, been very ill, and am obliged to lead much the 
 life of an invalid ; but I am surrounded with blessings, and am, I 
 trust, most truly thankful for leisure and repose. My family are 
 favoured too ; my dearest and most invaluable wife in better health 
 than she was a few years ago, my two elder children surrounded 
 with sweet young families, my younger daughter our comfort at 
 home, and my two younger sons just entering life. We have one 
 heavy family cloud — the illness, long-continued and grievously pain- 
 ful, of our beloved sister Mrs Fry. She has been for some months 
 unable to walk or stand, and is deeply afflicted in body ; but her 
 faith and hope are preserved in strength, and her reliance on the 
 Saviour is unbounded. 
 
 " Joseph J. Guniey is on a missionary excursion in France ; all 
 the rest of our families are in their usual health; the Cunninghams 
 rejoicing and labouring as usual. 
 
 " I am far more of a Quaker than you are as to these Indian wars. 
 I know every one of them may be called defensive, but the prin- 
 ciples and root of all are aggression and conquest. I cannot conceive 
 how our mis.sions are ever to prevail against the arguments of our 
 cannon. Six thousand heathen slain at Gwalior are a terrible set- 
 ofT against our converts. Yet we are not to be discouraged. I long 
 for the whole Christian world to combine its forces against war. 
 Peace seems to me an object not nearly enough striven for, as lying 
 at the root of all other good. 
 
 " One would suppose by my silence that I think nothing of the 
 abolition of slavery in the East Indies. This is very far from being 
 the truth. We do rejoice most truly in wliat has been done. We 
 know tliat there cannot bo the abolition of slavery, however narrow 
 and jejune may be its details, without a flight of concomitant bless- 
 ings. But wo want to know each and every detail, and we hope you 
 will write without delay, and tell us all about it." 
 
 A branch society for the civilisation of Africa had been 
 formed by the Africans at Sierra Leone, and had sent a 
 considerable sum of money to the parent society in England. 
 To their committee Sir Fowell addressed the following 
 letter : —
 
 1845.] APPEAL TO LORD STANLEY. 255 
 
 " Truman's Brewery, Jane 7, 1844. 
 
 " Gentlemen, — I cannot refrain from expressing the very great 
 pleasure which the intelligence of your proceedings has caused in 
 England, among persons bo long and so deeply interested in the wel- 
 fare of the oppressed inhabitants of uncivilised Africa. 
 
 " It is matter for great thankfulness to find such exertions for the 
 liberation of the slaves going on in any community, but especially 
 so when set on foot by the very men who have themselves been vic- 
 tims of the most terrible system of cruelty and oppression which 
 the world has ever known. You have, moreover, the credit of set- 
 ting the example to your fellow-countrymen of what may be done 
 by themselves towards the elevation of their species, and their own 
 liberation from the dreadful evils to which they have been so long 
 subject. 
 
 " Be assured that the spirit which this gift evinces on your part, 
 and the anxiety which it displays for the spread of human freedom 
 in the world, for the advancement of education, and still more for 
 the diffusion of the Gospel of Christ among the benighted millions 
 of your country, will not fail to afford the deepest gratification to 
 those who, for twenty years, have not ceased in their exertions or 
 in their prayers for your real and everlasting welfare." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Although in a languid, feeble state of health, Sir Fowell 
 spent a tolerably cheerful summer at Northrepps. In the 
 fine summer mornings he would often rise at four or five 
 o'clock, and go into his dressing-room, where his voice could 
 be heard for a great length of time in fervent prayer. When 
 remonstrated with on the risk to his health, " How could I 
 be shorter?" he replied on one occasion; "I could not 
 stop;" adding, " I have been praying vehemently for myself, 
 that I may receive faith, that I may receive the grace of God 
 in my heart, that I may have a clear vision of Christ, that 
 I may perfectly obey Him, that I may have the supporting 
 arm of the Lord in every trial, and be admitted finally into 
 His glorious kingdom." 
 
 In the autumn, although he was still able to take a little 
 air and exercise, going out on his cob with his gun, or to 
 visit his plantations, his appearance indicated increased lan- 
 guor and oppression ; and he was, to use his own words, 
 "under decayed spirits." Though very unfit for mental 
 labour, he was stirred up to exertion by hearing that im-
 
 256 LAST EFFORT FOR AFRICA. [JEt. 58, 59. 
 
 portant changes were about to be made by Government in 
 the arrangements for the liberated Africans at Sierra Leone, 
 by obliging them to go at once to the West Indies. He 
 greatly feared anything approaching to compulsory emigra- 
 tion, and warmly objected to the breaking up in any de- 
 gree of that system of education and training at Sierra 
 Leone which appeared to him, through the blessing of 
 God, just beginning to produce results of extreme import- 
 ance to to the whole continent of Africa. 
 
 He therefore wrote a long and urgent appeal to Lord 
 Stanley, adducing every argument to persuade him to give 
 up the scheme. The composition of this letter cost him a 
 grievous effort. He was intensely anxious to accomplish 
 it, thinking that it might have weight with the Govern- 
 ment, and induce them to relinquish what appeared to him 
 so injurious a measure. He would not give it up, but went 
 on making attempt after attempt to finish it ; often did he 
 begin to dictate, and then sink back exhausted in the middle 
 of a sentence ; then he would rouse himself and try again, 
 till at last it was completed. It is too long for insertion 
 here ; but it scarcely displays any trace of the extreme de- 
 bility under which he was labouring. With this act closed 
 liis long and arduous exertions on behalf of the negro 
 race. 
 
 The able and successful African missionary, the Rev. Mr 
 Freeman, who had recently returned from an adventurous 
 journey into the kingdoms of Dahomey and Yoruba, came 
 to Northrepps at the end of October, accompanied by the 
 Rev. Mr Beecham. 
 
 Remembering with what lively interest Sir Fowell had 
 received Mr Freeman's journals of his two previous visits to 
 Coomas.sie, which the Weslcyan Missionary Society had 
 sent him as soon as they could get a copy taken, his in- 
 .ability on this occasion to receive the gratification which his 
 friends had hoped to afford him was very painful. Ho 
 was, in fact, quite unable to enter into the details, which 
 heretofore would have given him so much pleasure. All 
 the incidents of the journey, although related by Mr Free- 
 man in the most animated manner, could not rouse him to 
 make questions or remarks. His family could not but feel 
 that evening that the blow was struck ; and, indeed, the
 
 1845.] SYMPATHY WITH SUFFERING. 257 
 
 solemn gravity of his own manner shewed that he himself 
 knew it to be so. 
 
 On Sunday the 17th of November he went to church; 
 and, according to his custom, gave out the hymns to be sung 
 during the service. One of them was that beautiful hymn, 
 beginning, " All hail, the power of Jesu's name ! " In read- 
 ing the last verse, which runs thus — 
 
 " Oh ! that with yonder sacred throng 
 We.at His feet may fall ; 
 There join the everlasting song, 
 And crown Him Lord of aU ; " — 
 
 so fervent was his emphasis, and so marked the expression 
 of his uplifted countenance, that, on returning home, the 
 llev. P. C. Law noticed it to his family, and said he felt a 
 strong conviction that he should never again hear Sir 
 f owell's voice in that church. The presentiment was 
 verified. 
 
 On the 5th of December, while sitting in his chair in his 
 dressing-room, he poured out his heart in prayer that he, 
 unworthy as he was, might, without a single doubt, know 
 the blessed Lord to be the Saviour ; that he might dwell 
 in Christ, and Christ, through infinite mercy in him, filling 
 his heart with charity, love, meekness, and every grace ; 
 that his numerous transgressions might be pardoned ; and 
 that, finally, he might be gathered into the land of ever- 
 lasting life. 
 
 Soon afterwards he said, "I feel my faculties and powers 
 obscured ;" but added, "my faith is strong." On the 15th 
 of December he was seized with a severe spasm on the 
 chest. While reduced to the lowest state of weakness he 
 was full of the spirit of gratitude, and continually poured 
 forth fervent thanksgivings. His prayers were earnest for 
 " the gift of the most Holy Spirit and the removal of all 
 clouds, that he might come to Christ, under humiliation, 
 sufi"ering, and infirmity ; and find strength and consolation, 
 in Him." 
 
 Towards the end of January, on experiencing some return 
 of strength, he remarked, " How pleasant is the feehng of 
 rest on recovery from illness, while all our worldly occupa- 
 tions are laid aside ! " and when some one observed to him 
 that it seemed Uke a foretaste of the heavenly rest prepared
 
 253 LAST DAYS— HIS DEATH. [.Et. 5». 
 
 for the children of God, he immediately broke forth into 
 prayer for each member of his family, that they might be 
 partakers of that blessed rest, through Christ our Lord. 
 The varied expressions of tenderness for those most dear to 
 him, which were blended with these prayers, were singu- 
 larly impres'sive. He continued to take a lively interest in 
 everything connected with his poorer neighbours ; indeed, 
 his own needs seemed to open his heart more than ever to 
 the wants of others ; so that it was necessary to avoid men- 
 tioning cases of sorrow or suffering, from the pain it occa- 
 sioned him. He took particular care that the villagers 
 should be supplied Avith soup and other comforts ; and 
 never did his countenance brighten up with more satisfac- 
 tion than when he caught a view, from his bed, of the train 
 of women and children walking home over the grass with 
 their steaming cans and pitchers. 
 
 The most cordial welcome was ready for every one who 
 visited liim ; and his expressions of love continually turned 
 into earnest prayer for them and for all his friends, that 
 they might be given to the Lord for life and for ever ! 
 
 Mrs Fry, who was herself extremely HI, wrote to him : — 
 
 " I must try to express a little of the love and sympathy I 
 feel with and for thee. : . . . How much we have been one in 
 heart, and how much one in our objects ! Although our callings 
 may have been various, and thine more extensive than mine, we 
 have partaken of the sweet unity of the Spirit in the Lord. May 
 we, whilst here, whether called to do or to suffer, be each other's 
 joy in the Lord ! and when the end comes, through a Saviour's 
 love and merits, may wo behold our King in His beauty, and re- 
 joice in His presence for ever. 
 
 " My love to you and your children and children's children is 
 great and earnest ; my desire and prayer is, that grace, mercy, and 
 j)eace may rest uj)on you in time and to all eternity ! " 
 
 At Sir Fowcll's request, the Rev. P. C. Law came, on the 
 9th of February, and administered the Sacrament to him 
 and tf) all who were present. At night he began talking, 
 aj)])arcntly in his sleep, of the conversion of the heathen, 
 and of longing to be at work for them, saying, " I am ready 
 to undertake all the working part." After a time of great 
 exhaustion he said, " (Jlirist is most merciful — most merciful 
 to inc. I do ]jut my trust in Him." 
 
 On the I'JLh of February he was very much exhausted,
 
 1845.] HIS FUNERAL. 259 
 
 but tranquil in body and mind. Towards the afternoon, 
 symptoms of increasing oppression returned; and as the 
 evening advanced, it was evident that he was entering the 
 valley of the shadow of death. He sank into quiet sleep, 
 his family collected round his bed, but no longer to be re- 
 cognised by their honoured head ; it was only to watch 
 the peaceful departure of the spirit. He lay perfectly still ; 
 and, about a quarter before ten o'clock, fell asleep in his 
 Lord. 
 
 " Never was death," says Mr J. J. Gurney, " more still, 
 
 and solemn, and gentle, than on this occasion Such 
 
 an expression of intellectual power and refinement, of love 
 to God and man, I think I have never seen before in any 
 human countenance. 
 
 " He was buried in the ruined chancel of the little 
 church at Overstrand. The old walls overrun with ivy, 
 the building itself, with the sea in full view, and the whole 
 surrounding scenery, are highly picturesque. 
 
 " The funeral, which was conducted vnth great simplicity, 
 took place on a mild, sunny winter's morning, and was at- 
 tended by a large train of relatives, friends, and neighbours. 
 Long before the appointed hour, crowds of villagers were seen 
 approaching the spot, through the lanes and fields, in every 
 direction. All seemed deeply moved. They had lost their 
 patron and friend, and were come to pay him the last tri- 
 bute of respect and affection. The assembly was by far 
 too large to find room in the church, but great was the 
 solemnity which prevailed in the churchyard while the in- 
 terment took place. The whole scene was at once affecting 
 and significant ; it seemed to speak in the language of 
 David, ' Know ye not that there is a prince and a great 
 man fallen this day in Israel 1 ' — fallen indeed, but only to 
 rise again, and to afford one more consoling evidence that, 
 for the humble believer in Jesus, death has lost its sting, 
 and the grave its victory." 
 
 A few weeks after the death of Sir Fowell Buxton, some 
 individuals, who had admired his conduct and character, 
 formed themselves into a committee for erecting a testi- 
 monial to his memory.
 
 260 TESTIMONIAL TO HIS MEMORY. [Alt. 59. 
 
 The project was warmly approved. H.R.H. Prince 
 Albert at once gave £50. The other subscriptions were 
 limited to £2, 2s., and in a short time a large list was 
 formed, containing among others the names of many of the 
 most distinguished men of the day, of both sides in politics, 
 and of various denominations in religion. Even more 
 gratifying than all this was the zeal with which the plan 
 was taken up by the negroes in the West Indies, Sierra 
 Leone, and Cape Coast, and by the natives in Kaffraria. 
 Such was the multitude of these grateful subscribers, that 
 ^450 was quickly raised, chiefly in pence and halfpence. 
 Altogether, the number of contributors in the West Indies 
 and Africa amounted to upwards of fifty thousand persons. 
 " The proposal," writes the Rev, W. H. Price from To- 
 bago, " was received with lively interest." " The whole 
 island has come forward," says Dr Reddie, in a letter from 
 St Lucia. From Nevis, the Rev. H. Chesborough \mtes, 
 " Our negro people willingly came forward to testify their 
 respect for the memory of Sir Fowell Buxton." The other 
 letters are in the same strain. Nor was this all : — the liberated 
 Africans and others in Sierra Leone had sent £100 towards 
 the monument in Westminster Abbey ; but they wished, 
 in addition to that, to have a monument among them- 
 selves ; they therefore subscribed a further sum of £80, 
 with which they procured a bust, beautifully executed by 
 Mr John Bell, which has been placed in St George's Church 
 at Sierra Leone. 
 
 The testimonial, for which £1500 was subscribed, is 
 a full-length statue, executed by Mr F. Thrupp, which is 
 placed near the monument of William Wilberforce, in the 
 north transept of Westminster Abbey. 
 
 PRINTEIJ I)Y BAI.LANTVNK AND COMPANY 
 
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